Three hikers got up close with a grizzly bear in western Canada on June 5. A video of the encounter has since gone viral.
The close encounter occurred when an Australian couple, Dale and Jessica Boshoff, went hiking with a Canadian friend. They were about five minutes into the hike on a popular trail in Canmore, Alberta when they saw the bear.
"It took a while for it to sink in that it was actually a bear," Dale Boshoff told Reuters. "We all backed up slowly, and talked to the bear calmly."
In the video, Boshoff can be heard saying "stay there, bearie, don’t follow us… I don’t want to use my bear spray."
The bear, which was walking on the trail, then turned and made a loop around the hikers, leaving plenty of space as he walked past nonchalantly.
Local news outlets quoted wildlife experts saying this was a good example of how to handle an encounter with a grizzly bear, and the hikers did the right thing by remaining calm and staying together as a group while still being prepared with a bear spray if the encounter turns south.
