Irene and Gunther Spann had just handed out some goodies to their first trick-or-treaters when not five minutes later they received a Halloween scare.
The Coldstream couple, and their son, looked out their window Halloween evening to see a big brown bear sniffing their carved pumpkins.
“We had just had two young boys dressed up as bananas at the door,” said Irene, who lives near Kalamalka Lake on Coldstream Creek Road. “About five minutes later my son said, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a bear on the porch.’”
After checking out the lit-up jack-o’-lanterns, the bear wandered into their yard, where he knocked down a bird feeder and then unsuccessfully tried breaking into their compost before moseying off.
“It (Halloween) is usually pretty quiet, but it made for a pretty exciting night,” said Irene, who guesses the bear was probably 400 lbs.
The Spanns alerted the conservation office, RCMP and their neighbours about the bear and warned the rest of the trick-or-treaters that came to the door.
“We were worried about the little ones,” said Irene, who figures the two banana-clad trick-or-treaters must have just missed crossing paths with the bear.
“We only get about five trick-or-treaters so we’d hate to scare them off with that.”
The Spanns have seen bear scat in their yard since summer, but hadn’t seen the actual bear until now.
“They do live here,” said Irene, as bears are known to frequent the area.
But being just up from Kidston Elementary, the couple hopes parents of kids at the school keep the bear presence in mind for safety sake.
