Bear

Although not this one as it happens. Whistler is a strange and lovely place. There is a village at the bottom of 'the slopes where everything happens'. The 'everything' includes chairlifts going up the mountain, zip lines, zip-trecking, completely insane BMX bikers who have their bikes chairlifted up and then bike down, dressed like some sci-fi half-person, half velociraptor.
Then there is hiking, bungee-jumping and no doubt a myriad other ways to scare yourself stupid. The village itself is like an extended theme park based on a German town square but surrounded by Swiss chalets - the hotels. And yet, and yet...I was struck that the people walking around the town seemed quite ordinary. I would have expected a lot more in the way of pretension in a place where Kevin joshed that they charge you fifty bucks an hour just to breathe.

The people we were visiting live in Whistler, but a ten minute drive from the hotel. We had a very enjoyable evening, and around 23.00 we were feeling tired and ready to leave. Suddenly there was a huge BANG as though a giant had thumped the back of the house. Everyone rushed to the back balcony. At the back of the house, where the steel bins were, was a 400 pound black bear. My son Ben could see it clearly under a tree. The bear seemed to leave but then we heard the BANG again, and it was there, probably hadn't in fact left. We couldn't go, we were under seige to to a black bear. The children stayed out on the balcony watching the bear and we finally decided that it had been there long enough for us to leave at the front of the house.

It was a strange thing. I didn't actually see the bear and so really had insufficient fear of it. Ben, who did see it, and all of the Canadians who have had plenty of opportunity to see bears and knew what they were capable of from long experience, had enough sense not to want to go outside while it was around. I realised why we had taken the car.

People have dogs and cats here, just as they do in Britain, and there are of course the ubiquitous bunnies - maybe we should have rounded a few up and taken them up into the mountains, but I am still surprised by the animals that are around us here that we just see in cartoons at home. Chipmunks, red squirrels (almost extinct in Britain)coyotes, racoons, skunks, and in the mountains, bears. I'm hoping to see a sasquatch next time.

Well, no, not really, not unless it is at some distance, but I do believe I might.