B.C. Conservative leader Dan Brooks tells of close encounter with grizzly
'Whole thing couldn't have lasted five seconds, but it was five seconds of sheer terror'
B.C.'s new Conservative leader is sharing a harrowing tale of coming face-to-face with a charging grizzly bear roughly 60 kilometres southwest of Vanderhoof.
Dan Brooks, who is based in Kamloops, told CBC News he was guiding a hunter near his family's lodge last week when he walked up over a rise and happened upon what at first looked like a pile of dirt.
"All of a sudden this head rises up from behind it, and it's huge and it's right in front of me and so I stopped and said, 'We have a problem.'"
It turned out the pile of dirt, which was about 20 metres away, was really a grizzly guarding a moose carcass.
"He immediately charged us," Brooks said.
"I shot in the dirt and my client also shot in the dirt, and the bear turned around and ran the other direction," he said.
"Whole thing couldn't have lasted five seconds, but it was five seconds of sheer terror," he said.
Brooks said as the huge bear retreated, it made him think of a horse trotting off through the forest.
"I mean, just a giant bear," he said.
Brooks said his client had the fright of his life, but nobody was hurt.
"Frankly, I started laughing. I said, 'Whoa, that was a close one.'"
And, he said, at least now they both have a great story to tell their grandkids.
With files from the CBC's Jaimie Kehler