A Courtenay man says he nearly had a heart attack after opening the door to a bear on his front porch.
On the night of Jan. 2, Steve Kane was at his home on Cherry Ridge Drive with his wife when he thought he heard the garbage can blow over. This crash was followed by more noises as if the can was rolling around in the wind.
“I went out on our closed in porch to look outside, I opened the front door and to my utter shock there is a huge black bear right there on my porch in front of me maybe 24 inches away,” said Kane.
He said in his surprise he slammed the door in its face and locked it.
Kane called the game warden and then the RCMP, but the bear was gone before anyone arrived.
After talking to neighbours the next day, he found out another neighbour also had a bear on his back deck a couple nights earlier.
“I’m 65 years old and have been a hunter all my life. I’ve had a lot of close encounters with bears and other wildlife but never like this,” he said. “I was totally unprepared for what I saw when I opened the door.”
