Kiwis beat bear to cookies

Press, 26 July 1978, Page 6

Kiwis beat bear to cookies

From

LES BLOXHAM

for NZPA

f. black Canadian bear lost his supper to a couple of hungry Kiwi marooned on the banks of the S okey River on Sunday evening. The New Zealanders — Alan Johnson, of Featherston and Bruce Slater, of Greytown — were forced to spend a night in the open after their jet boat. Miss Kiwi failed during the second stage of the Internationa! River Boating Championship. The two men were stranded in an exceptionally remote area of Alberta, aoout lOOkm from ’he nearest road. Their only food was a can of meatbails and spaghetti,

but Johnson, recalling that spectators in boats had parked nearby to watch the race, decided to search for edible remnants dis-

carded earlier in the day. White scrounging along the river bank the two men surprised a large bear with obviously similar intentions: “We beat the bear to that one, Bruce,” Johnson told his companio as the large animal lumbered off into the woods leaving behind half a packet of biscuits. The New Zealanders’

native ingenuity again came to the fore when they returned to their boat to set up a makeshift camp for the night. Finding themselves

without matches to light a fire, they used sparks from Miss Kiwi’s battery to ignite toilet paper soaked in petrol. Getting fuel was no problem. They collected small pebbles of alluvial coal which littered the beach and kept the fire going through the short but cold Canadian night. Johnson said it was the

first time he had slept with a crash helmet on: “I needed it to keep my head warm,” he said. Next morning the two men decided to ease their

one-tonne craft with ropes through the swiftly flowing rapids, a task which took about three hours. Concern about their failure to arrive at the finish caused two New Zealanders to charter a light aircraft for a search. The two men were found drifting slowly downstream still 40km from the nearest road.

They were retrieved by helicopter two hours later after first securing their boat to the riverbank. Johnson and other New Zealanders were mildly critical of the organisers for failing to make any effort to check out their situation.

“With all their support boats I would have expected something better," said Johnson after his return.

But for the concerted effort of the New Zealand supporters Johnson and Slater would have been floating for at least another five hours.