Full agreement with Shawn. It is irresponsible to not include pepper spray (and a few cans of it) The alternative is killing bears that don't need to be killed and it is hard to justify that. After all, you are in their territory and you likely attracted them -- not enough to sign their death warrent. Keep the gun as a back-up and the knife for the day when you really want to get hurt bad. For the record, I have paddled a bit in the north and have live most of my life in remote bear areas including, for the past 25 years, on the last place on a dead end road with Crown land and two sides and bears in the area including gizzley (which have even munched away in my garden). I've done my research and find Steven Herraro (Bear Attack) probably has the most accurate info on the subject. Odds of problems are low and spray will likely deal effectively with anything which comes up (including the equally dangerous moose).
good luck
don
: Pepper spray, pepper spray, pepper spray.
: I'm a gun-toting red-blooded American male, and my bear protection tools are
: in this order: Common Sense
: Noise
: A fast horse
: Pepper spray
: ...
: ...
: ...
: A gun of any stripe
: A bear can move awfully fast and do a lot of damage before your shaking hands
: can take aim and do any damage enough to stop the bruin.
: Read 'Mark of the Grizzly'.
: If someone breaks into your home, threatens your kids, and you want to beat
: on them and teach them a lesson, would you prefer they're packing pepper
: spray or a gun? 
: Shawn
*NM*
*NM*
