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NP: Can you describe for me where you were and what you were doing?

Nelson: I was in the Panache region. It’s a hunting area with trails running through the bush. I tied the dog up to a tree and I sat down on a log and ‘pop!’ out comes a cub’s head. Now, I can’t run because I’ve got a cliff behind my back. And I’ve got my dog tied to a tree. And she can’t go down the cliff with me. So all I did was step in front of my dog. And I could hear the bear crashing through the brush to get into the clearing.

NP: Were you consciously thinking through how you were going to react at that point, or was it pure instinct?

Nelson: I was thinking through it enough to look around and see if was there anything I could use as a weapon. But after that, no, it was pure instinct. So the mother (a black bear Nelson estimates at about 300 pounds) came crashing through and I knew it meant business. This thing didn’t stop. It didn’t stomp. It didn’t snort. It just came straight at me. When it stood up and took its first swing with its left paw, it hooked my front shoulder and as I swung around I went to hit it but I missed because it hit me so hard. I hit it in the lip and teeth, which actually did a lot of damage to my knuckle. And it went down.

NP: Sorry, it went down or you went down?

Nelson: It did. It swung. It went down. I hit it. It came back up again. It swung again, this time with its right paw. And it just vaguely caught my back because I was trying to roll away from it. And that’s what gave me a second shot. This time I used my hand in an uppercut and hit it right in the snout. And it just sat down on its butt.