LAKE OF BAYS: A local woman had a terrifyingly close encounter with a bear right outside her bedroom door.

Chantel Chalkley was awoken at roughly 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 12 to what sounded like someone going through her fridge. That night Chalkley was staying in a smaller size cottage off Highway 60 in Lake of Bays near Limberlost drive.

“I open up my bedroom door and immediately hear growling and then see this black bear coming towards me,” said Chalkley. “I shut my bedroom door and just started freaking out holding the door.”

Chalkley estimates she was three feet from the bear when she opened the door.

While holding the door shut she began to quietly text her roommate, who wasn’t in the building at that point, for assistance. She did not call the police or anyone else out of concern the noise would draw the bear to her.

“I think it was angry or confused. I literally didn’t make noise because I didn’t want it to come in. It obviously knew I was there but I didn’t want to agitate it,” Chalkley said. “There is no lock on my bedroom door so if he wanted to come in he could have just pushed the door open. He was able to physically open a fridge and take off the entire screen on the window.”

The situation with the bear pacing about the cottage and Chalkley trapped in her bedroom played out over roughly 45 minutes. The bear eventually left.

Chalkley was not able to determine the exact size of the animal in her home but adult black bears have been known to weigh more than 500 lbs.

“He was so big he could barely fit through our hallway,” said Chalkley. “He kept running into things and was pacing back and forth so much. My bedroom door doesn’t lock so I was just holding up against it. It’s an old wooden one with circles at the top to see through so I could watch it just pacing back and forth.”

Police later arrived and did witness the bear in the area before it ran off.