Two Nelson men are lucky to be alive after they were attacked by a grizzly bear while sleeping in a tent in the forest near Canal Flats, South of Invermere.

Jeff Hebert and Ken Scown were woken up by the sound of a large mother bear in their camp on Oct. 14.

“You could feel the ground shaking and hear her huffing and puffing. I knew it was a bear and I knew it was close. Then she hit the tent, just like that,” recalled Scown.

“She was on a full-on attack before we even said, ‘hey bear; hey bear,’”

What followed was about 20 seconds of chaos. The grizzly landed on Scown’s stomach. He pushed the bear off and was able to roll over on all fours and protect his head.

Scown yelled at his partner to shoot it. Hebert shoved a cartridge into a gun and waited for a clear shot of the bear. All this was happening in total darkness.

“He didn’t want to shoot me,” said Scown. “We had to push the bear away and then shoot.”

When Herbert finally squeeze the trigger nothing happened.

“There was just a click. The gun wasn’t loaded right,” said Scown.

At that point the bear tore through the tent and sunk it’s teeth into both men, putting puncture wounds in Scowns right arm and leg and tearing into Hebert’s left forearm.

“I was lucky my sleeping bag wasn’t very warm so I was wearing four layers of clothes to bed; the bear had a lot to bite through. My injuries weren’t as bad as [Hebert’s],” he said.

Despite his pain, Hebert managed to get to his feet and chase the bear away.

“For a moment I just laid there in total disbelief. I’ve had lots of encounters [with bears] but I never thought I’d be attacked in a tent,” said Scown.

The men performed first aid on each other and lit a bonfire to keep the bear away while they packed up their gear. They saw the bear had left tracks in the snow around their tent, indicating that it had circled the tent a couple times before charging it.

“It was completely predatory behaviour. She was hunting us,” said Scown.

They also saw the smaller tracks of a cub that might have been watching its mother attack the men.

Hebert and Scown hiked five kilometres back to their truck and drove to the Cranbrook hospital for clean bandages and antibiotics before returning home to Nelson. Their injuries were minor, and Scown said the encounter hasn’t scared him off trips to the bush.

“I’ve been hunting for over 20 years and in forestry for 18 years. It’s my passion; that doesn’t change because of a bear attack,” said Scown.