What to sing to a brown bear standing on its hind legs five metres in front of me? A soothing song might have been appropriate – ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’. Or something topical to add humour to the mix – ‘Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear’ (Elvis Presley) or ‘Eating the Bear’ (Joan Armatrading). But I needed a song where words would spill from my mouth without effort, so I sang ‘The Boxer’ by Simon and Garfunkel. I'd played my Simon and Garfunkel cassette repeatedly in my Sony Walkman over the ski season until even a pencil in the cassette holes couldn't return Simon and Garfunkel's voices to pitch.

'The Boxer' is what I would sing, but why would I sing to a bear? That's a good question.

I was living in Jasper, Canada – a northern Albertan town of ski bums and waitresses where elk regularly wandered the streets. A beige-painted, low-rise town in the middle of a national park where you could ice skate in winter and explore the web of trails through the conifer forests in summer. I had got over my Beatrix Potter-induced disappointment that squirrels were squabbling rats with fluffy tails and was excited to see marmots squeaking in mountain pastures and beaver flapping their paddle tails in rivers. It was 1987, a year of permed hair (not mine), blue eyeshadow (could have been me), Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer on radio repeat.

I’d discovered mountain biking in the conifer woods on my trusty cobalt-blue Marin Pine Mountain, bought for $300 at the local bike shop when I was only earning four dollars an hour. I continue to love bicycles more than cars; by late 1987 I’d never owned a car but I’d owned at least ten bicycles. Mountain biking was a new sport and it suited me down to the ground, or the wheels, with its mix of aerobic and technical challenge while silently traversing wild places.

I knew there were bears in the woods. Sometimes there were bears in town. Jasper had only recently put complex handles on their dumpsters so locals didn’t find a bear popping its head up when they went to throw their rubbish in. There was an apocryphal story of staff arriving on a Monday morning to be greeted by a bear who had broken into the bank. However, nothing seems likely until it happens to you, or someone you know well.

So there was the bear. Between me and town. Actually, there were three bears, two cubs and a mother bear. The cubs were the crux of this situation. I saw two teddy bears in the track and thought, “Cute.” Then I thought, “No!” as the cubs ran up a tree and the mother ran to put herself between the cubs and me. I’d read what to do – I jumped off my bike and held it at arms’ length to make myself look larger. Then I sang, because bears have poor eyesight so you tell a bear where you are by talking to it or, in my case, singing.

The bear followed the rule book to the letter. She’d come towards me to protect her cubs. She stood on her hind legs, swaying back and forth, intimidating the potential aggressor. Then she dropped to all fours with her head raised as the aggressor backed off and took a wide tangent into the forest to rejoin the path five hundred metres away before riding rapidly off on her bicycle.

I was reminded of this event when I read about the ‘Man vs Bear’ social media furore in May. You may have come across it – in a TikTok video, an influencer asked a number of women whether they would rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear. The women in the video all say they would rather be in the woods with a bear.

‘Man vs Bear’ has spawned much discussion, some of it light and some of it more serious. When women tell men about the video (I haven’t yet heard of a man raising the topic), men are often affronted if women say they’d rather be in the woods with a bear. The question may go more to the core of men’s self-esteem than woman expect. Perhaps not so surprising, most men don’t want to be seen as dangerous predators.

Women say they’d rather be attacked by a bear than a man because, for example, “Everyone would believe me if I said a bear attacked me.” Or, worse, “I wouldn’t have to see a bear at the family reunion.” And, “You know what to expect from a bear.”

It’s the last statement that resonates most with me. Considering the man vs bear question, I’m interested in the intent of man or bear. Am I in a better position to intuit whether a man is likely to attack me in comparison with a bear?

Based on my experience, I’ve had around ten significant unwanted experiences with men where they behaved in a threatening way or sexually harassed me. I’ve met a lot of men. I’ve had zero experiences of a bear attacking me but I’ve only met around ten bears. Experience and statistics aren’t helping a lot. (I could add, I've had a number of women wreak some awful manipulative and destructive social havoc on me...we often focus on the horror of sexual attacks and harrassment while ignoring other types of attack...but that's a different topic).

However, we can narrow this down. Based on reports of others and my experience, a black or brown bear is mostly going to regard me as a invasive nuisance and run away. In contrast, for a grizzly bear, I'm a potential dinner. Therefore, if the option is a grizzly or a man, I’m definitely picking the man.

But let's widen the thinking. What I haven’t seen the man vs bear debate touch on is why I might have gone to the forest in the first place. If I’m there on my own, it’s likely because I want time out in an environment devoid of humans. I’m not wanting to pick between men and bears, or women and bears, or asexual people and bears, I’m wanting it to be the bears and me.

What’s your pick?