He's bullish on bears

JEREMY KLASZUS

THE BLACK GRIZZLYOF WHISKEY CREEKBy Sid MartyMcClelland & Stewart,282 pages, $34.99'The best thing to do is avoid an encounter," reads the headline in a Parks Canada pamphlet on bears and people. Today it may seem like an obvious statement, but in the late 1970s, the distance between bears and humans in the tourist mountain town of Banff, Alta., had become dangerously small. Grizzly and black bears regularly raided the town's garbage dump for food. Tourists flocked to watch the feasting omnivores, snapping photos of them as if they were harmless as chickadees. A similar photo op unfolded downtown when bears fed behind Banff restaurants that refused to bear-proof their garbage bins, despite numerous warnings from Parks Canada.