I keep a cannister of bear spray on a shelf by the mudroom door, next to a cakey-capped tube of sunscreen and two mostly empty and partly rusty green aerosol cans of OFF! Deep Woods insect repellent. I’ve never used the bear spray, and most days I forget to bring it with me when I trudge out into the woods, even though, to encourage the habit, I got a nifty little holster for it, with a carabiner for hooking it to a belt loop. Honestly, I’m more scared of the spray than of the bears. A few years ago, a robot in an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey inadvertently burst a cannister of bear spray, and twenty-four humans had to be hospitalized. (The robot was unharmed.) Technically, according to the label on my cannister, which is decorated with a drawing of a grizzly with a gaping red mouth, baring his teeth, it’s not bear spray. It’s “BEAR ATTACK DETERRENT,” and you can see why the clarification is necessary. Last spring, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation tweeted:
Listen,
bear spray
DOES NOT
work like bug spray.
We would like to not have to say that again.
Bear spray is dangerous, but hardly regulated in the U.S.: you can get it at a gun shop; you can get it at Walmart; in most states you can order it online. If you’re camping in the backcountry in certain national parks, you’re urged to carry it, and you damn well should, but having it on hand is no guarantee that you’ll know what to do if you encounter a bear. Most people are stupid about bears, and I’m one of them. Either they’re too scared (“bearanoia” is, I gather, the term for this) or they’re not scared enough (beardevils?).
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
