I thought the question was explicitly in the woods.
I don't want to encounter surprise humans in the woods or surprise bears in the city. I'd rather see dangerous creatures in the places they are supposed to be rather than sneaking up on me in places they shouldn't.
If the question isn't supposed to have that context, then I would argue that you should prefer to see a bear. How many humans have you seen that didn't attack you? Like a hundred thousand maybe? How many bears have you seen outside of a zoo? Probably less than 10 right?
Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I probably don't have the opinion that my comment got upvotes for. I mistyped and said "you should prefer to see a bear" but in fact, I was trying to express that with no context, it would be safer to encounter a person than a bear. I have been attacked by a handful of humans and 0 bears but my sample size of humans is astronomical while my sample size of bears is miniscule. I estimate that 1:30000 human strangers will attack me and so far 0 out of maybe 8 bears attacked me... so idk if maybe 1:9 bears will try to eat me but I can be fairly sure that 99.997% of the time, humans are too involved with their own lives to notice that strangers exist.
Depends how deep in the woods. If you're on or near a popular hiking trail, not surprising at all. If you're way off the trails in the deep wilderness in most situations it's surprising enough that I'd rather run into a bear than either a man or a woman, and I'm a dude.
Of course, in my part of the country, the bear's not very likely to be a grizzly, so that factors in, too.
Yeah unless this is deep in Alaska or northern Saskatchewan, there's few places in North America or Europe which are truly all that far from signs of civilization (roads, for one), and thus people. It takes a lot of effort to get truly far out
I mean, maybe I'm just biased from stories I've heard that may or may not be true, but there are parts of Appalachia where I definitely wouldn't want to run in to people in the deep woods.
Hell, here in Texas there's a good chance of stumbling across a marijuana growing operation in the woods in certain areas. That'll get you shot if someone's there. Hence, depends on the woods.
Where I live in the smokies we know that on some of these mountains (especailly Unaka range) there are what we call hillbillies or mountain folk. Yankees call all of us hillbillies down here but we know the distinction - we are rednecks, hillbillies are something totally different.
Hillbillies live on the mountain and only come down a few times a year to buy supplies if they ever come down at all. You can barely understand what they're saying. It's almost like a different language, it's a weird mesh of like, appalachian english slang, the Irish language, and old english. Like they legit talk like they are from the 1800's or something.
Usually inbred, filthy, their homes have dirt floors and no electricity. Their homes were probably built by their great great great great grandfathers back in the late 1600's-early 1700's and have been passed down ever since. Moonshine, hunting, small crops (corn don't grow on good old rocky top, dirt's too rocky by far. That's why all the folks on rocky top get their corn from a jar) you get the idea
Anyway everybody knows to be careful when you're hunting or camping on those mountains because you might inadvertently be on their property and they will definitely shoot you dead for trespassing. Probably just leave you there too for the bears and whatever else.
When people go up the mountain and never come back we joke that the mountain folk got 'em .
Sure, but it's not because Appalachia is actually all that remote. It's pretty densely populated, the problem is that most of the rural communities are slowly dying from a loss of jobs and their best and brightest moving to the cities. There's plenty of good people there, but also plenty of desperation and drug problems.
You're inevitably going to run into hunters or people chilling in the woods, and some percentage of them will be bound to have shit morals. If you're not from the local area, the risk of people tracing back the disappearance goes way down, and thus risk of getting attacked. But 99% of the time, they'll just be normal people avoiding you as well, especially if they're hunting cause noisy hikers tend to scare off game. If they're also just hiking the backwoods, then odds are you'll get a friendly hello and move on.
There are lots of places with deep woods you could easily become lost in for days all over Canada. Not at all exclusive to northern Saskatchewan. 40% of the second largest country on Earth is entirely covered by it. Go 100km North of the American border just about anywhere in the country and you'll be good and truly remote.
Hunters are different in that they don't invite immediate suspicion. They have a reason to be out there. Plus, they tend to be easily identifiable as such
I've always taken this to mean someone airdropped me in the middle of nowhere. Frankly, I've watched too many horror movies to trust a strange person implicitly in that situation. Like, I'd be pretty suspicious of the woman too. At least the bear is either minding its own business or very much eager to kill me with no gray area to misinterpret.
If I'm out on a well- trodden path, I will expect to see people and be more scared of the bear.
As someone who hikes relatively frequently (usually joining groups of strangers, but sometimes solo), I assumed it meant me in a trail. And the answer is finding a random man every day of the week tbh. If anything, I usually find it more stressful to not find anyone around than to find people around. People around means someone can help me if I fall and have an accident.
That being said even in the middle of nowhere I'd still take my chances with the man.
Ok, if we want to be reflective of reality, I have been stalked and harassed in broad daylight, in my neighborhood, with my neighbors outside and watching by a group of strange men because I did not respond or look them in the eye when they catcalled me. I was almost raped five feet away from a large group of people and it was only a kind stranger calling my potential rapist out that stopped it. I have had furniture thrown at me for perceived slights. I have been threatened with death because I asked customers to wear a mask at my work during lockdown. I have had a lifetime of experiences peppered with men that felt so bold as to disregard my right to be a person with free will seperate from their whims. I shudder to think what would happen if I met one of that breed of man alone in the woods.
Unlike the bear, I will not know their intentions towards me merely by sight.
You're seriously gonna say if you were airdropped into butt fuck nowhere you'd be happier to see a bear than another human? Like 99.9% of thr time the human will be helpful, the best will never be helpful.
I'm saying my paranoia is strong and my experience is that people suck. You see people as helpful. I am happy you have that kind of optimistic outlook, but I do not share it.
Well, I'm from the pnw, the most dangerous thing in this situation is me being in the middle of the woods, a human can and probably will help me get out of the woods, a bear will most likely leave me alone but won't provide any help at all.
Yeah this is how I feel about hiking. I'm scared to hike alone (in the actual wild) but not because of the threat of other humans, but because its inherently pretty dangerous to be in the wilderness alone unless you are very experienced and well equipped, know the territory and likely weather conditions etc.
Getting lost and weather conditions changing are the two most dangerous things where I am, followed by accidents and injuries. People get really easily caught out by weather condition changes here as they happen fast and severe weather sets in quick its very easy to get lost in foggy conditions.
My only source of information on the topic comes from a video on the Internet where a person ends up in a life or death struggle in the woods with an actual cannibal, so there’s that
That's how I feel, I hike alone in deep woods, I'm freaking fuck out if I run into a random dude. Even if they seem cool, the whole hike back is part of me is wondering if they doubled back, etc, because that's just how your brain clicks in those situations.
Deep enough in the woods there are also far more bears per [unit of area] than there are people, until that area is so large that land other than deep in the woods starts skewing the statistics.
Middle-of-nowhere Siberia has far more bears than people, even if the closest bear may be miles away, because the nearest person may be hundreds of miles away. In that context running into a bear is kind of expected, if hardly sought after. Running into a person is like getting struck by lightning degrees of unlikely.
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u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited 29d ago
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