Recent Alberta bear encounters prompt attack survivor to speak out about her own experience

A woman who once survived a bear attack near the area where a bear encounter left a man injured close to the border between Alberta and British Columbia on Friday is speaking about about her tale of survival.

“If you survived and you come out the other end, you did a heck of a good job,” Fran Nykoluk told Global News.

Late Friday morning, the RCMP said officers received an “emergency SOS activation on the Great Divide Trail, near Window Mountain Lake.” They learned that a 45-year-old Calgary hiker had been attacked by a bear and sustained injuries.

Resources from a number of agencies were brought in to rescue the man from the area northwest of Coleman, Alta., and then bring him to hospital. The type of bear that attacked him and the reason for the attack has still not been disclosed.

“They were extensive injuries,” said Const. Cory Riggs with the Alberta RCMP.

“The person was unable to get themselves out of the situation.”

The encounter has prompted several trail closures in the area.

1:04 Man airlifted to hospital following bear attack in the Crowsnest Pass

The area where the incident unfolded is in the same region as where Nykoluk survived a bear attack about 20 years ago while tracking an elk her husband had shot.

“I was backed up against a tree, so I was standing there,” she recalled. “(The) bear lunged at me and grabbed my face, … damaged the whole side of my face.

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“You look around you and all of a sudden here’s a bear coming at you like a freight train through the bush and what do you do?”

Nykoluk was seriously injured and traumatized by the event. She said the mental recovery took years.

Wildlife experts say bears in Alberta are currently actively looking for food to fatten up for the winter.

“It doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to hurt people, but it does mean that they’re very active out in their environment,” said Kim Titchener, the founder of the wildlife safety training organization Bear Safety and More. “So it’s really important for us to make lots of noise out there when we’re on those trails.”

“I remember screaming bloody murder, which most people would, and feeling that agitated (the bear),” Nykoluk said of her encounter years ago.

“(But) the calmer I got, the calmer she got.”

Nykoluk said she had a gun on her at the time but it jammed. She said she did not have bear spray with her, something she said she would not do again when venturing out into the bush.

Friday’s attack follows an incident earlier this month near Madden, Alta., where a hunter was seriously injured after encountering a grizzly bear.

Officials said the bear remains at large and was with what it described as “subadult” bears at the time of the attack.

In that case, an Alberta Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Services officer said the attack is believed to have been a “defensive encounter” but officials also noted that DNA samples show the bear was also responsible for a fatal attack that occurred in 2021 near Waiparous, Alta.

2:04 Fish and wildlife search for grizzly bear after hunter injured north of Calgary

Titchener said the guidance for how to respond in a bear encounter has changed somewhat over the years.

“It used to be a species-based approach where we would say if it’s a grizzly you do one thing and if it’s a black bear you do another,” she explained.

“We’ve tried to move to an approach of, ‘What is the type of encounter I’m in?”

Riggs said if people are going to areas where they could encounter a bear, there are a number of things they can do to mitigate the risk to their safety.

“Make sure that you have an emergency SOS device,” he said. “Make sure that you tell someone that you trust where you’re going.”

He added that those out for a trip in remote areas should give someone they trust an approximate time they expect to arrive in the area, as well as when they plan to depart.

–with files from Global News’ Sarah Offin and Jayme Doll

2:38 Is Alberta seeing a changing approach to bear safety?

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