Whether you're visiting a national or provincial park, hiking through deep woods or fishing a well-travelled stream, you may find yourself face-to-face with North America's largest predator. This book can make the difference between a close encounter and a deadly one.

Backcountry Bear Basics provides tested strategies to help you avoid conflicts with black bears and grizzlies. All aspects of backcountry travel are covered, including how to cook and store your food and set up your campsite to avoid attracting bears. Outdoorsman Dave Smith explores commonly held beliefs and fallacies about people and bears, including the belief that human sexual activity may attract bears.

From fishing to mountain biking, Backcountry Bear Basics looks at the likelihood of encountering a bear and suggests tactics for coping in different situations. When should you "play dead" and when should you fight for your life?

Thoroughly researched and packed with tips, Backcountry Bear Basics will make anyone's next visit to the "backcountry" a safer one.

This is a new release of the book published in May 1997.

Dave Smith is a naturalist who has lived in grizzly country since 1972. He has worked in Yellowstone, Glacier, Glacier Bay and Denali National Parks, and worked as a fire lookout in northwest Montana for three summers. Dave's outdoor adventures have included a solo canoe trip from Yellowstone National Park to the Missouri River in North Dakota and a forty-day stay in the remote, rarely visited desert canyons in central Arizona.

Dave lectures widely on bears and has appeared with Jack Hanna in a documentary on Glacier Bay National Park aired by PBS and The Nature Channel. He is the author of Alaska's Mammals, and resides in Anchorage, Alaska.

Dave Smith's profile page