Steven Rinella Gets False-Charged By A Grizzly Bear in British Columbia on MeatEater

Over the years, I have had some what I would call memorable

grizzly

bear

moments. But this one I just received in British Columbia is the closest call I've had so far, and in some ways the most disconcerting. We were actually hunting

grizzly

bear

s, making our way into this alpine basin, this little isolated mountain range. And I'm with a guy, Ryan Callahan, who I'm friends with because he works at the clothing company First Lite. Ryan has done a lot of guiding, BC, Montana, he's been around the block a lot. And we get right where he starts to look really good.

That is, with good visibility, we can really see what is happening. And suddenly, as if out of our side view, not just one bear appears, but four of them. She is a sow who carries with her three small puppies born in spring. And she looks almost angry, like... she would like to eat all the blueberries off this blueberry bush, and when she ate it, she looked like she was angry at the blueberry bush and would go argh! And start eating at another blueberry bush. And we're watching her continue, and she's started to come back to us. "Is she the one there?" "Yeah." "Let's make some noise and let her go." "Somebody is here".

We've been saying things like "Git git git!" Callahan says "Hi Mom!" "Hi Mom!" I mean we're like... you don't really know what to say, like you can speak in tongues. You're just trying to make noise to get the bear to calm down. The bear doesn't care about any of this. Absolutely. And I could hear this. Wow. And barking. Wow, wow, wow. "Do you hear her barking at us?" "Yeah." "Hi Mom!" "Take your children and go." "Do you see her? Hello mom!" "She just crossed this gap and is coming this way." She circles the tree. We save a bullet. "Hi mom!

Hi mom!" "Hey!" Callahan is shooting in front of her. And she doesn't care at all. And meanwhile, these three puppies are behind her and they're like, "What's going on? What's up mom?" "What is happening?" I will shoot. I'm going to kill this pig. And she turned. She takes off, turns around and Callahan says, "I'll never forget, I want to buy him a t-shirt with him on her mustache with this," she says, "Here's to us now, ma'am!" Smell us now lady. That's the phrase that comes to Callahan's mind the moment a grizzly bear changes its mind and decides not to attack us.

What he's referring to is that as he cuts, he

gets

like... he

gets

like downwind. Know. And then Ryan says, now the wind will carry my smell, to realize that we are people and we shouldn't bother each other, and then what he shouts is, smell us now, ma'am! Which became something like ours: now it's like the battle cry of the carnivores. "Smell us now, ma'am."