A sweet-toothed bear raided a Campbell River family’s freezer Thursday night, virtually ignoring the meat and fish, gorging itself, instead, on the Christmas baking.
“He didn’t take anything that you would think a bear would take, like, there was smoked salmon, there was blackberries and like, meat and stuff,” Sharla Marr said, “and he pulled some of it out and took a bite into some of the things but then pulled the containers of, like, chocolate cookies, peanut brittle and just went to town.
“I had a container full of mint Nanaimo bars and it was a 11 x 16-inch pan, like a full-sheet pan of Nanaimo bars that was cut up in there and he ate the whole thing.”
Like many people in town, the Marrs’ stand-up freezer was in the carport. After opening it up, the bear broke into the containers and virtually licked the pans clean. Marr said she had to take some time to recall what all she had in there based on what was remaining because there was no trace left in some containers.
“The containers were just broken and empty,” she said.
The bear took a bite out of some bread and sampled some fish and meat but just pulled them out and left them to thaw.
Marr estimates the raid took place between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. She lives on a road in the south end of the city that is near a greenbelt and knew there are bears in the neighbourhood. Plus she has a newborn baby and she’s up a lot in the night and has heard bears around. She usually checks out noises in the night but has never caught sight of a bear.
But Thursday night she and her husband heard noises again but they decided to just ignore it this time.
“Both of us heard something and we never went out and looked and we’re kicking ourselves,” Marr said.
Because this time, there was a bear out there helping himself.
“Yep, he was pigging out on all the Christmas baking.”
Now Marr has to replace the lost baking. She does baking on the side from home and had some people expecting delivery of baking orders, plus she had her family baking out there too.
It could have been worse, there could have been more baking in the freezer but Marr hadn’t produced as much as she normally would have because she’s dealing with a newborn in the house.
The freezer sustained some damage but mostly it’s dirty from the big furry messy eater. She’s had to bleach the freezer after transferring what was left to the in-laws’ freezer.
The raid comes as a surprise because Marr thought bears would be hibernating at this time of the year.
Unfortunately, the bear raid went full circle because he left an unpleasant calling card before he left.
“And then he pooped, literally, on our door sill,” Marr said. “I don’t know how it was physically possible. Like, on the step part that your door touches…He must have been right up against the door.”
