Dale and Jessica Boshoff moved to Canada from Australia last September to live in the mountains, but they never imagined the most memorable part of the trip would be an encounter with a bear.
The Boshoffs were hiking with a friend on Mount Rundle near Canmore, Alta. on June 5, when five minutes into their adventure, they came face to face with a grizzly.
“I saw the bear, and I saw it moving and coming down and I’m like, ‘What is that?’ I’m like, ‘That’s a bear!’ And I’m like, ‘No that can’t be a bear,'” Dale told Global News from Canmore, Alta.
“No wait, that actually is a bear!”
A couple of minutes after the initial encounter, Dale started recording it on his smartphone.
In the video, he can be heard talking to the bear.
Jessica said at first, she wasn’t pleased that Dale was capturing the potentially life-threatening ordeal on video.
“I honestly thought that we were going to be those tourists who recorded our own deaths,” she joked.
“Before I took my phone out, I was worried in the beginning, but then after a while I got a calming feel, like he’s not really interested in us. He just wants to use the path and we’re in the way,” Dale said.
The couple arrived in Canada last fall on a working visa and plan to return to Brisbane, Australia at the end of July.
They reported the incident to provincial emergency officials and are warning all other hikers that it’s vital each person has bear spray close at hand.
“You need to have it right there,” Jessica said. “You need to know how to use it.”