Fears while paddling or on canoe trips

just worth mentioning that Japan has the Brown and Asiatic Black Bear, and the black bears there are far more aggressive than the North American Black bear as a species. It's theorized that due to historic competition with aggressive felines like tigers and various other species such as various types of leopards, they've evolved to be highly territorial and confrontational

PaddlingPitt said:

These two images are from 2001, when Kathleen and I paddled the Snowdrift River, Northwest Territories.

View attachment 150572

Boarded up windows to deter marauding bears,

With heavy-duty spikes on the ground.

View attachment 150573

Click to expand...

Back in the seventies I skied up to a boarded up and winterized fire lookout on a peak near Yosemite, and found the plywood had been ripped off a window and the interior ransacked by a bear. Something like those spike panels probably would have stopped that - if it didn't get covered by snow.

I don't know about hogs, but it's common for beekeepers with bears in the area to resort to electric fencing. One I know who had a bear raiding his apiary ended that problem with electric fencing. Seems like a lot to carry on a portage though.

Steve in Idaho said:

I don't know about hogs, but it's common for beekeepers with bears in the area to resort to electric fencing. One I know who had a bear raiding his apiary ended that problem with electric fencing. Seems like a lot to carry on a portage though.

Click to expand...

UDAP has one that weighs less than 4 pounds (electric fence). One BearVault weighs 2 1/4 pounds.

Mason said:

UDAP has one that weighs less than 4 pounds (electric fence). One BearVault weighs 2 1/4 pounds.

Click to expand...

That's not too bad. Might be worth it in some places.

If you totally lose all fear it is time to retire from paddling.
My greatest fear has always been the safety of the people that I have invited on overnight trips.

Bears have shown up in camp many times at night. My dogs have always had them leaving on the run. I remember one incident in the day time while portaging an aluminum canoe. The bear took one look at the canoe on my head and left the country.

In one of the books I read this summer, there's the following tale. The author approached a well known canoe explorer and asked if he had ever been afraid during canoe trips. The answer: all the time.

When I come across that again, I'll post it. I'm starting to think it was a book when I was on the Cree. That would narrow it down.

Mason said:

UDAP has one that weighs less than 4 pounds (electric fence). One BearVault weighs 2 1/4 pounds.

Click to expand...

It runs on two D cell batteries. How shocking can that be? Especially to a beast covered in thick shag carpet. I'd like to see some proof.

Glenn MacGrady said:

It runs on two D cell batteries. How shocking can that be? Especially to a beast covered in thick shag carpet. I'd like to see some proof.

Click to expand...

They'll put out 5000 volts. Although I haven't used the UDAP one, battery operated fences are commonly used in grizzly country around food and around game meat, and they're tested and accepted by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) as effective deterrents (they represent the industry standard for food storage in grizzly bear habitat--all Federal and most State agencies manage according to their recommendations. See IGBC bear resistance). The IGBC lists requirements of acceptable fences on page 15 (IGBC fences ). Here's a video by the National Outdoor Leadership School on testing fences with grizzly (NOLS fencing). I've seen other vids of bears and fences but I'm sort of lazy this morning (2am my time!).

Improbable as it may sound, it is possible to up transform the puny 3 volts available from a pair of D-cell batteries to any higher voltage you like. It is done with a DC-DC boost converter circuit, which employs inductors, capacitors, diodes, and high-speed electronic switches. (we really need those rare-earth mineral elements). You can get increases and discharges to 5,000 volts, but with very few milliamps from D-cells. A brief discharge of 5,000 volts hurts. Volts hurt and frighten, but it takes a high level of amps (0.1 or more) to kill a human.

A spark discharge after shuffling across a wool rug may generate tens of thousands of painful volts at just a very few milliamps. The voltage needed for a spark in air is approximately 3,000 volts per millimeter. On the other hand, a typical lightning bolt may have a voltage of around 300 million volts and a current of about 30,000 amps.

An imperfect anlogy: Think of high voltage as water pressure from a hole somewhere in a high dam. Amps is the measure of volume of water rushing through due to the size of a hole somewhere in the dam. You can stop most tiny leaks with finger pressure, but a large hole in the bottom of the dam will blow you away. A capacitor is the measure of the total volume of water held in the lake behind the dam.