Man vs Beast: Half-Eaten Alive

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0:33It's July 2019 in southwest Canada, near the coast of British Columbia. An unpaved road cuts a narrow path through the pines. Tall grass grows along the verge and sprouts through cracks in the thinning gravel. At first glance, you'd assume that nobody had come down this way in years. A forgotten logging road, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. But, on closer inspection, it seems somebody has been here, recently. A walker, by the looks of it. A discarded backpack rests among the weeds and wildflowers. Over there, a hiking pole, slightly bent and badly scratched, lies in the dirt. There, a scrap of torn clothing.

1:22And on the overgrown verge, some fifty feet further up the road, a pool of blood turns dark in the afternoon sun. Clearly, something dreadful has happened here. A short distance away, another drop of blood stains the ground. Then another, and another. It forms a trail, crimson flecks dripped along the road, leading in the direction of the shore. Down to where 44-year-old Colin Gowler is peddling for his life. Each little rise I came over, each corner I went around, I'm thinking, man, I've been peddling for so long. That's got to be where I get to the hill, where I can coast out of here, because I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.

2:14Colin's bicycle weaves down the road, his legs struggling to maintain enough momentum to keep him upright. Blood trickles from his thighs and midriff. His face is ashen grey. This road leads to the coast, where help hopefully awaits. It has to. Without it, Colin won't survive the hour. As he pedals, he glances over his shoulder, heart thumping. Has the creature followed him? Nothing. He looks forward again. Fingers squeezing the handlebars, his teeth gritted, his jaw clenched. But he isn't making enough progress. He's moving too slowly. I look up and I see the five-kilometer sign. Which meant I'd only made it halfway to the hill that I needed to get to, to Coast Town.

3:10And my spirit sank at that point. I thought, man, I'm probably only halfway. There's no way I'm going to make it.

3:42The End

3:50In July 2019, the father of two is exploring the rugged natural beauty around Mount Doogie Dowler on the southwest coast of Canada. After a night camping in the forest, Colin is cycling back to the boat landing, heading for home, when an unexpected obstacle appears in the road up ahead. A wild, dangerous animal that nobody wants to run into in these parts. And so, a tense, terrifying, drawn-out encounter commences. It started to seem like it was just a prod, and I blocked it with my bike, and then, you know, another little swat, and I blocked it with my bike. And getting into the fourth or maybe sixth one, they were getting more aggressive.

4:34And then he came down and he lunged at me. This was all super slow motion. In the blink of an eye, Colin will find himself on the wrong side of an unfair fight. thrust into a deadly struggle against one of the animal kingdom's most powerful beasts. The next thing I know, I've been spun 180, and I'm on my back and my shoulders, thinking to myself, oh man, I am in trouble here. And then I remember that I had a knife in my pocket. I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

5:25It's Sunday, July the 28th, 2019. A motorboat navigates an intricate maze of inlets and fjords, the shattered mosaic of islands that comprises Canada's coastal southwest. Sitting with his bearded face tilted into the sun, 44-year-old Colin Dowler carefully guides his vessel through the channels. The surface of his wraparound shades reflects a ribbon of snow-capped mountains looming above the shoreline. He breathes in the fresh sea air and smiles, feeling the motion of his boat as it slaps over the gentle chop.

6:05Colin is on a route-finding mission. He and his brother have made plans to climb a mountain on the mainland. But due to how wild and unspoiled this region is, he decided it would be a good idea to scope out the area first. This time, my intention was not to climb the mountain, but to see if I could find reasonable access to the alpine so that when it was time to climb the mountain, we weren't wasting our time. Colin steers into a sheltered cove. He ties up to a wooden dock, hoists his mountain bike out of the boat, and wheels it along the jetty. When he reaches the top of the beach, he gets on his bike and pedals into the forest, following a gravel road through the pines.

6:51After a little while, he reaches a logging camp, a collection of metal-roofed sheds with stacks of lumber piled outside. He gets off his bike and approaches one of the loggers, an older man who turns out to be the camp cook. Colin explains that he's looking for a path up to the mountains, and asks the man if he knows of any viable routes. The cook sizes him up. It's pretty rough country up there, but if he's determined to go ahead with it, then he'll help him out. The cook hands him some pepper spray Always useful in these parts And then offers to give him a lift at least some of the way Colin thanks the old man and loads his bike into the back of his truck He drove me about nine kilometers until he couldn't push the truck any further Because there was too many trees and too much underbrush in the way So it was a tighter bush than I'd expected So they got me off.

7:53I thanked him. He took a picture of me and laughed. This one's for the milk cartons in case you don't return.

8:02Colin grins for the camera before the old man wishes him well and drives off. The cook's parting joke would likely freak most people out, but Colin laughs it off. After all, he grew up in these parts. This landscape is woven into his DNA. Colin spent his early years on nearby Quadra Island, a sparsely inhabited outcrop sandwiched between Vancouver Island to the west and the mainland to the east. I grew up on an island. There was a little more than a thousand full-time residents. We didn't have cable television. Of course, there was no computers. I mean, there was the odd one, I guess, in the late 80s.

8:44Certainly no internet. He's my closest friend, as in physically closest friend, was about a kilometer away. Back then, you made your own fun. For young Colin, that meant exploring the local beaches and creeks, dragging his mountain bike all over the little corner of the island. With its long, punishing winters and reliance on traditional industries like fishing and logging, This part of British Columbia breeds a tough, resilient sort. Scrappy and hard-wearing, Colin is not likely to back down from a fight, even when the odds aren't in his favor. He attributes this in part to his relatively diminutive stature.

9:26I sincerely think that it comes from me being so small and always trying to keep up with the big boys. I mean, I had no place being on the grade 12 rugby team, But I was. So I was 108 pounds, 5 '7", you know, playing rugby. I don't know. I just had to keep up. It wasn't until I was doing a first-year psych course at UBC that I realized that I had a small man's complex, whereas I like to refer little-itis.

9:59Defying expectations would become a habit. After finishing high school, Colin went off to university in Vancouver with dreams of one day becoming a physical therapist. But it turned out that academic life wasn't for him. At university, there was a bunch of young people and nobody really seemed to know what they were going to do or where they were going. It seemed like I was working my way towards a desk job, which was about the last thing in life that I wanted. So Colin dropped out of university. But he didn't go home to the island straight away. With some money saved and an uncertain future to ponder, He boarded a train south for Mexico.

10:39I actually went traveling. I did a solo backpacking trip. This would be about 1995. And I got on a train down to Guadalajara, Mexico. And then I backpacked and took buses and cabs into Guatemala and Honduras. Then flew back to New Orleans and took a bus home. So that was kind of like my soul-searching trip. And on that trip, I decided that I'd become an electrician. That's what I did. Colin eventually settled in Campbell River on Vancouver Island, a town of about 40 ,000 just over the water from where he grew up. He got married, had kids, and built a good life for himself and his family. Being an electrician kept him on his feet, while still affording him plenty of time to fish, hike, and climb at weekends.

11:27But things change. Colin ended up getting a job as maintenance and operations manager for a healthcare authority. A far more desk-bound role. And now he's feeling the effects. I'd been getting out of shape because now I've been working a desk job for about four years, like I never wanted to do when I was in my 20s. And I found that I was just in the worst shape of my life and I was no longer able to go from couch to adventure on the weekends. So, when he got a call one afternoon from his brother, suggesting the two of them go off and summit a local peak, Colin didn't hesitate. Mount Doogie Dowler is located on the mainland, but at nearly 7 ,000 feet, it's visible from all the islands in the surrounding area.

12:13It's distinctively shaped, with a wide, flat summit and steep sides that abruptly flatten out at the base. From a distance, it's easy to see why some people call it the cowboy's hat. It really does resemble one. But for Colin Dowler, the mountain's official name has special resonance. It's named after his grandfather, Doogie, who used to run a convenience store on Quadra Island with a view over the mountain. When he died in 83, some of the community members thought it would be fitting to name a mountain that was in view of the grocery store after him. So they went through the process. It was an unnamed mountain.

12:53They applied to have it named after him, and so it became. This will not be a straightforward trip. And Colin's wife, Jen, has some serious reservations. But she's always been supportive of her husband's need to quench his thirst for adventure. With its sheer rock walls, climbing Mount Doogie-Dowler is difficult enough. But even reaching the base is a challenge. After landing by boat, climbers must push through miles of tangled forest. It's a punishing approach. Which is why Colin came out this weekend, to scout a way through. When he returns with his brother in a few days' time, they'll already have a route mapped out.

13:40After the cook drops him off, Colin cycles as far as he can, before parking his bike and continuing on foot. He bushwhacks his way through the forest, hacking at the undergrowth with his hiking poles. Eventually he finds a shallow creek, which he follows upstream. He's getting closer to the base of the mountain, probably just a few kilometers off, when he decides to stop for the night. The sun is going down, and there are things in this forest you don't want to encounter after dark. Colin pitches up in a sheltered clearing. He unrolls his bivvy bag and sparks up his camping stove. As the light dwindles, he reaches for the pepper spray the cook gave him earlier.

14:26But it's not there. He roots around in his pack, emptying all the pockets. No luck. The canister must have fallen out at some point along the way. Colin sighs and shakes his head. His eyes shift across to the forest. The shadows between the trees morph into dark shapes, leering and snarling. He looks away. Better get some sleep.

15:01The next day, Colin wakes to the sound of birdsong. It's another beautiful morning. His clearing is flooded with bright, warm sunshine. Satisfied he now has a good route to the mountain mapped out He packs up his things and starts making his way back through the forest Heading to where he left his bike yesterday It descended back down through the bush I stopped and looked for my pepper spray Where I thought it was most likely to have fallen out of my pocket Maybe a half an hour looking for it Ultimately decided it was a needle in a haystack So I carried on down the trail As he walks, Colin deliberately makes a racket.

15:44He thwacks tree trunks with his hiking poles and belts out a stream of nonsense. Good practice in these parts. You know, the odd scream and just letting animals know that I'm in the area. Because when you can't see 20 feet in front of you, you kind of want to warn things that you're coming. Colin pushes his bike through the bush, back towards the logging road, near to where the cook dropped him off yesterday. At that point, I kind of felt relieved. I thought, all right, awesome. I got my bike. I'm, you know, maybe a half hour from the boat. It only puts me a few hours from home. This is great.

16:20It's my birthday tomorrow. So I'm going to see what I can talk my wife and kids into doing for my birthday, maybe get home, have a couple of beers, and then kidnap the family for a day of fishing. He might be turning 45, but there is a childlike spring in his step as he wheels his bike onto the logging road and hops into the saddle. Cruising down the road at a decent speed, I was on a flat stretch, and I looked up to my right and I saw the 7km sign, which means that you're 7km from the end of the road, which ends where my boat is. I looked up the sign and I looked back down, and 75 or 100 feet in front of me, there's a guzzly bear standing on the room.

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19:32It's July the 29th, 2019, near the coast of British Columbia. Colin Dowler breaks hard, bringing his mountain bike skidding to a halt. There, standing on all fours on the forest-lined path in front of him, is a hulking, grizzly bear. It must be at least 400 pounds, or roughly 180 kilos. An adolescent male, not fully grown, but already big and powerful, with a wide, furry face and a pair of narrow-set eyes fixed firmly on Colin. The bear didn't just run off, which is my experience with black bears. So as the bear's standing there looking at me, I thought, oh man, it's not taking off. I could turn and try riding away.

20:23Might have been taught that's not a good idea, because if you're basically running from a bear, they're going to close in on you. Best to just stay calm. But as Colin stands there, rooted to the spot, willing the bear to slink off into the trees, the animal doesn't seem at all frightened. It seems curious. Slowly, the grizzly approaches, rolling its shoulders like a prizefighter as it walks, a slow, lolloping gait. Its snout is low to the ground, twitching, inhaling human pheromones. When it comes within 30 feet of him, Colin tries a different approach He steps off his bike and carefully slides a hiking pole out of his backpack He bangs it against the handlebars, hoping to scare the animal off

21:18And at that point he skittered on all four paws And I could hear his claws scratch in the dirt And he skittered nervously and then he paused for a second or two and then slowly started approaching again. At this point, I'm going to suggest that I had lost all confidence and bravado that I thought I had in nature and with wild animals. Now the bear is close enough for Colin to make out the details. The small, amber eyes. The long, curled claws scraping against the surface of the road. The string of saliva dangling from its vast lower jaw. I remember thinking, man, I wish I was filming this because nobody's going to believe I was this close to a grizzly.

22:05And I honestly thought he was just going to walk right by. The grizzly is now within touching distance. You can smell it. A skunky, putrid odor, like a wet dog, but far more intense. Colin holds his breath as the bear slopes past him. And it lowered his head and if I recall correctly, sort of flattened his ears too. It reminded me of a shy dog, like it didn't seem aggressive, it seemed, you know, timid. And he walked, he was almost all the way past me. And then when he was almost past my bike, He did a 180 degree turn Colin hurriedly repositions his bike Between himself and the animal He can see the heat rising from its shaggy coat The steam huffing from its open mouth The wet shine on its pink gums The flash of yellow teeth He can fully take in its size too The bear seems to take up the entire road Its thick, brown fur gives it a rounded appearance, barrel-shaped.

23:19Every sinew is primed and tensed, coiled, ready to spring. The grizzly eyes Colin with a primal hostility. It's as if the animal has mistaken the human for a rival. Or maybe it's just hungry. Either way, Colin needs to do something to alter the course of this escalating situation. His heart galloping, he extends his hiking pole and presses the tip firmly against the flat of the bear's head, just above the eyes. Forced a little bit, right? I didn't want to do anything aggressive because it just wanted to leave me alone. I didn't want to be angry. He rolled his head and bit the pole. Then we tied a ward for maybe a second.

24:02And he let go of the pole and started to focus on me again. With trembling hands, Colin unclips his backpack. and tosses it onto the ground. Maybe the food in there will distract the bear. But it doesn't. The grizzly only has eyes for Colin. He started prodding at me with his right claw, I guess. And it started to seem like it was just a prod. And I blocked it with my bike. And then, you know, another little swat. And I blocked it with my bike. And getting into the fourth or maybe sixth one, they were getting more aggressive. Colin flinches as another powerful right hook narrowly misses his head.

24:46A single clean impact from one of those bollard-sized forelimbs could crush his skull. He shields himself with his bike, the lightweight metallic frame a pathetic defense against this apex predator. But it's all he's got. He ducks again as the grizzly takes another swat. now colin watches in horror as the bear raises its hackles the fur on the back of its wide neck standing on end bristling and shimmering it's his final warning there is only one direction this is headed if he doesn't do something now to repel the grizzly then he is done for i took my bike and i threw it out of out of desperation and i remember seeing his arms through the A-frame of my bike.

25:36And then he came down, he lunged at me. This was all super slow motion.

25:44It happens in a fraction of a second. And yet everything seems to slow down. Through the frame of his bike, Colin sees the bear propel itself forward, its head twisted slightly to one side, its jaw open, fangs bared. The bike disappears, flung aside like a twig. In the next instant, he is hit by an explosive, bone-shuddering force. And suddenly he's on his back. His senses are overwhelmed by the violence of it. The grizzly's hard, muscular head rammed into his midriff. The overpowering stench of its hot breath. The soft, warm fur spilling around him. There is a sharp, popping sensation as the bear's teeth puncture his stomach.

26:33Then he feels himself being lifted off the ground

26:39So I'm hanging upside down in this bear's jaws Thinking to myself, oh man, I am in trouble here And my main thoughts were that if he drags me off into the bush I would go for sure The bear carries Colin 40 feet down the road Before dropping him He lands face down on the verge As the animal goes in for another bite, in the chaos, Colin tries to gather his senses. Grizzlies often kill their prey by forcing them into submission, crushing them with the weight of their massive bodies, then biting and mauling until the fight is over before it's begun. Colin's assailant, however, appears to be taking its time, toying with its prey before finishing it off.