Wimp editor scared in the woods

It was supposed to be such a nice hike.

For much of the summer I had been looking forward to hiking along the Coastal trail in Fundy National Park. Last week, during my holidays, I finally went.

I thought it was the perfect chance to leave the big city behind and get in touch with nature and listen to the birds sing and gaze at the beauty of the cliffs and the trees and the waterfalls of Fundy.

Instead, I discovered that I was a wimp, and that perhaps I was now only suited for city life. This discovery took place about an hour into my solo hike last Saturday along the Coastal trail, which is a challenging, hilly trail that runs beside the Bay of Fundy.

The incident began when I heard rustling in the bushes. For some reason, I froze. My mind did not freeze, however. I began to think that the noise was being made by a bear. Why I thought it was bear, I don't know.

Anyway, there I was frozen alone on a trail at least an hour away from the nearest human being convinced that a bear was stalking me and ready to pounce. This is foolish, I told myself. Black bears haven't been spotted in the park for years and years.

I looked closely into the bushes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the dark animal that was about to kill me. I saw nothing.

I tried to remember what I was supposed to do in the event of a bear attack. I realized I did not really know what to do.

In an attempt to calm my nerves, I made myself remember the time I had worked in the woods while on summer break from high school. We were so far out in the bush that we had no power and had to store our meat and other items in a nearby stream.

One night we heard growling in the woods and rushed out to discover that a bear had found our little stash and was helping itself to our goodies. I was brave (or stupid) back then and wanted to rush down the path and confront the bear, but was convinced that would be a bad idea.

On the Fundy trail, I told myself I was brave (stupid) back then, so don't be afraid now. It didn't work.

I forced myself to remember what I had heard on the news about bear attacks. I was sure I had heard someone say that a person should act insane when a bear approaches. That would be easy considering the state I was in at the time.

Then I was overtaken by a heroic thought. A few weeks ago I had placed a story in the paper about a man in British Columbia who had fought off and killed a cougar with a pocket knife. I reached into my pocket. Car keys and quarters. My pocket knife was where it had been for years - home in my dresser drawer.

I started to think about how insane I could act. Very insane, I decided. My actions would involve waving my hands in the air and yelling loudly and bouncing up and down.

I couldn't go out like that. I would fight the bear. I tried to decide who at The Daily Gleaner would be the best person to write the heroic tale of my fight with the bear in Fundy National Park. There was a Gleaner reporter who had written a profile of Lumpy the camel, who had appeared at the FREX years ago. She would be the one.

I then realized the story would likely be an obituary because I would die. I became angry. Nobody would be writing my obituary. I would stand my ground and fight and win. It was then that I decided to run. As I was about to flee, I heard rustling. Oh no. There was more rustling and out from the bush came a tiny little red squirrel. It looked at me and made a squeaking noise as if to mock me and then ran back into the bushes.

I took a deep breath. This was a story I promised myself I would never tell. But I became brave once I reached the big city.