Recently, one of our readers asked us the following question:

We live in the Canadian prairies, though not too far from the Rocky Mountains (about 3 hrs).  We are avid campers, but we cannot convince ourselves to start hiking with our 4 and 6 yr old kids, though we talk about it all the time.  The prairies have cougars and the mountains have bear and cougar.  Did this type of wildlife have any bearing on your decision to hike in the mountains of Maine? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Where we live here in Maine, the only wild animal that we really have to worry about is black bears. While they can be dangerous, the more we read and learn, the less we fear them. In fact, we are all looking forward to the day when we get to see one on an excursion. Any wildlife besides squirrels would be nice... perhaps having 3 energetic kids on the trail contributes significantly to us not seeing much of anything.

When it comes to more dangerous animals such as grizzlies and cougars, we are not really in the position to speak with any authority on the matter. What I do know is that the more you learn, the better off you will be. Educating yourself from reputable sources will go a long way towards creating a healty fear (respect) and give you the tools you need to be more confident in the backcountry. To help out towards this end, I forwarded the question on to someone I with much more experience than I.

Ryan Jordan is the founder and CEO of Backpacking Light. Follow Ryan at his blog or via Twitter . An Eagle Scout and former BSA High Adventure Program Director, Jordan lectures regularly to and trains Scouting leadership, outdoor education leaders, search and rescue organizations, and land management agency staff about the gear and skills required to go light while maintaining an appropriate balance of safety and comfort. This is what he had to say:

Your fear of grizzly bears is both healthy, and warranted, especially with kids. It's your protective nature kicking in. And that protective nature on behalf of grizzly bears is why we have conflict with them in the wilderness.

They need to eat, so they will raid caches of human food if given the opportunity. We can control that by having impeccable food preparation and storage practices in our camp.

But it's the bear attacks that I cannot control that cause some worry. So we try to minimize the risks of those happening, too.

The worst cases are when we surprise a bear. They don't cope real well with surprises and their protective response kicks in. The most dangerous human-bear conflicts occur when we surprise a bear (or worse, a momma bear and cubs) while hiking along the trail. As long as we make noise, we minimize (but do not necessarily) eliminate the chance of a surprise encounter. These surprise encounters are the ones I fear the most when hiking with kids, so I will often hike at the front, so I can be the one to confront the bear, rather than those who are less experienced.

The main question I ask when faced with the prospect of taking kids into grizzly bear country include: How much strength do I have in the rest of the party in case of a bear attack? Bears don't usually attack parties of 3 or more, and the reason attacks occur on parties of 2 is primarily because those 2 are split up by quite a bit of distance at the time of the attack.

Thus, I'd feel pretty comfortable with two adults and two kids if we all stayed together, and I might not worry at all if I could convince another family to come with me! That would be a lot more fun, too! There is strength in numbers and that is the best asset in grizzly country.

The worst case scenario of course, is the night time predatory attack where a grizzly bear wants to hunt you down and eat you. Fortunately, these are very rare occurrences, and while they do make for good campfire stories, the chance that they are happening is so infinitesimally low that it would be irresponsible for me to warn you about it and not warn you about the risk we take every day by the way we live and work, and the impacts that a stress-ridden, first-world lifestyle has on everything from emotional well being to heart disease.

Therein lies the primary reason I like to visit Wild Places, and the grizzly bear is a large part of that. It's a big, beautiful animal that deserves our respect. It's quite a sight to observe one in the wild, and you'd not be experiencing wilderness living to its fullest without that experience. It changes you.

Great advice, thanks Ryan!

Update 2010-05-25: I was recently reminded of a blog post that I read a while time ago called The Great Fear. A very worthwhile read, and very relevant to this topic.