treetop camping in black bear country

I will be in Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario this coming summer... I plan on climbing and camping in some nice red and white pines in a grove i have scoped out... one of my concerns (among many) is related to the heavy black bear populations in that park... for the most part the bears run off when you start banging pots and pans together and i am aware of the many precautions that need to be taken such as sleeping 200 ft from hanging food bags, not sleeping near cooking area, etc... im also aware that black bears are not agressive by nature and they rarely if ever attack a person... im just a bit worried that while sleeping at 50 ft in a treeboat, a beear may mosey up the tree to investigate what i am doing up there... needless to say this would totally freak me out... is this a completely unrealistic worry or is there cause for concern.... anyone with treetop camping experience in black bear country please share your experiences... thanks... wolfe

Your concerns about black bears are not unfounded, and your precautions are sensible. Never sleep near your food or cooking area, include with that, your cookware and clothing worn while cooking. Hang it all at least 12 feet off of the ground and a minimum of 8 feet from the trunk. - 200 feet away from camp is the minimum. Bears are omnivorous - like humans, they eat EVERYTHING!
Note: This may be TMI for some of you, but the above list of things to hang should also includes ANY bathroom trash used feminine products.

Here's a link to some good techniques:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/bear_bag_hanging_technique.html

TIP: Bears don't know the difference between an apple and apple chapstick. ANYTHING that smells like food, IS food, in a bear's mind. Keep it all well away from your sleeping area. Candy wrappers left in your pocket, deodorant, tooth paste, sunblock, or even mint dental floss could be an attractant. Why? Read on.

The blood hound has a sense of smell 1000 time greater than that of a human. Ursus americanus (Black Bear) has a sense of smell 700 times more sensitive than a blood hound. Male bears have been known to track females \"In season\" from 14 miles away!

Here's a good tip - Make some little cotton filled bags, about the size of a small throw bag, soak them in ammonia. store them in airtight containers so your entire pack won't smell of ammonia. When you make camp, hang them near the bottom of your sleeping tree. When they get a whiff of it, THE BEARS WILL STAY AWAY! Think about your reaction when you sniff ammonia, now multiply it by 7000. It burns!

also, contact the local park service in the area you are visiting, they will have information, tips, and techniques for dealing with bears and other wildlife. I checked online - they do.

There's a publication that the PA Game Commission puts out called \"Living With Black Bears in PA\" - It contains some information you can use. Be safe, have fun!
www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/lib/pgc/blackbear/pdf/blakbear.pdf

Additional information can be found at Leave No Trace.
www.lnt.org

thanks for the info baker... all very helpful... the ammonia trick is pretty slick and i wouldnt have thought of that... wolfe

Another option is to hang a couple of small noisemakers on the lower part of the trunk, or wherever they need to be so you'll hear them if disturbed in the tree. Position them so a bear would have to contact them on the way up the trunk. Position so that wind won't cause a false alarm (if you want to get any sleep).

I've slept in a tree in black bear territory, for some reason I felt no worries. Maybe I should've been.

Would be worth doing more research on black bear behavior, what makes them climb trees? My impression is that it's more as an escape (for smaller bears), and for seeking food as in honey bee nest or ants, grubs etc. Will they climb a tree covered with human scent if there is no food scent?

Since most if not all wild animals follow rules of conservation of energy (they don't do things they don't need to do) it wouldn't make sense for a bear to arbitrarily climb a tree in the middle of the night. The bear needs a reason. I wouldn't camp in a tree that has any potential food sources for bears.

In general I wouldn't tree camp close to an area where bears are already congregating around human food sources.
-moss

moss wrote:

Since most if not all wild animals follow rules of conservation of energy (they don't do things they don't need to do) it wouldn't make sense for a bear to arbitrarily climb a tree in the middle of the night. The bear needs a reason. I wouldn't camp in a tree that has any potential food sources for bears.
-moss

You are correct Moss. Bear will climb for two reasons: To escape a threat and for food. Natural food growing on or living in the tree, your food, anything you have on that smells like food, the shirt you wore during breakfast at Denny's that morning, well, you get the picture

this is all great info... i pretty much knew that if i took the precautions necessary for any sort of camping in black bear country id be alright... the good news is that i wont be having any dennys for breakfast given the remote nature of the park... the other good news is that the bears of quetico arent desensitized to humans and are certainly not being fed either purposefully or inadvertently (via trash bins, etc).... due to this thread i will sleep soundly wearing non-food smelling duds, with an ammonia bag hanging not far away from my treeboat, and some bells hung to the trunk... ahhhh... i can feel the moment already... thanks guys... wolfe

I found this. Since you're going there, swolfe, I assume you've seen it too, but I thought others might benefit from the info.

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Bearwise/index.html

Baker wrote:

I found this. Since you're going there, swolfe, I assume you've seen it too, but I thought others might benefit from the info.

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Bearwise/index.html

Some great info there. Reinforces what I thought, when a normal (not habituated to humans) wild black bear smells, sees or hears humans, it goes the other direction. This is no different than just about any wild mammal that you might come into proximity with. The only major exception I can think of in the lower 48 is porcupine, skunk and 'possum (sometimes doesn't run). For predator class mammals Mountain Lion but even then cases of attack on humans make a big splash in the news but are very rare.

In the few instances where I've had proximity to Black Bear in the woods, they ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction when they noticed me. The other thing about them is that they are generally noisy moving around, when they are foraging there is no mistake about their presence. Turning over rotted logs in the forest is not a quiet business. Similar to other large animals like moose, they can't help but make a certain amount of noise as they move around the forest.
-moss