Black bear pays late-evening take a look at to business supply shop in Pincher Creek

When Patti Mackenzie showed up at get the job done very last Friday morning, she located a massive hole in her store’s entrance window and a Mountie standing inside, waiting around for her.

Mackenzie functions at Pincher Place of work Items on Principal Avenue in Pincher Creek. 

“When I came to function at 7 in the early morning, the alarm was likely off, but which is not unconventional. So I arrived in and shut it off. And I turned around and Const. Dennis was standing by a hole in the window, expressing, ‘Well, there you are.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, what are you doing there?'” she claimed.

Const. Val Dennis of the Pincher Creek RCMP was there to secure the retail outlet until eventually staff arrived. The crack-in experienced occurred early in the early morning, and RCMP customers had been standing observe at any time due to the fact. They weren’t absolutely sure what transpired to the window, but they ended up really positive the store hadn’t been burgled.

“What I have an understanding of is the alarm went off about 1:30 or 2 in the early morning, and a few of police officers attended and found the hole in the window. They cleared the retail store. There was very little in the retail outlet. Almost nothing taken. Very little broken, except the window,” Const. Dennis informed CBC News.

“I was the officer coming on obligation early in the early morning. I arrived in early just to manage safety … till we experienced any individual demonstrate up to acquire care of the retailer.”

When Mackenzie arrived, they cleaned up the glass and boarded up the window.

It was not until the next working day, when retailer operator Christine Lank returned to city, that the mother nature of the intruder was learned.

Lank and Mackenzie looked at the footage from the store’s online video cameras. That’s when they noticed their intruder had been a huge black bear.

Mackenzie says it did not seem the bear intended to crack in and thinks the animal may have been spooked.

“He was seeking in the entrance doorway and he wasn’t performing anything at all wrong, just getting a tiny search. And then, all of a unexpected there’s these vibrant lights. It experienced to have been a car or truck. The up coming issue you know, on the cameras you just come about to catch the bear’s butt, working up the aisle in the store,” she stated.

“Then he arrived to the again of the retailer. He went to our back door and he looked out the window there. Then he just strolled on down the future aisle. He was not dashing, he was just acquiring a minor search all over. And then he need to have went again out the gap. Thank heavens.”

A couple of minutes later, the camera picked the bear up across the street, heading east.

“He did not disrupt a point, other than the window,” explained Mackenzie.

She thinks a passing car or truck have to have turned the window into a mirror and the bear billed its possess reflection, ideal by means of the double-paned window.

Const. Dennis explained he is not aware of any other bear sightings in city this yr, but they usually are not unheard of.

“We did have a bear hanging about right here previous calendar year, but I considered the activity wardens dealt with it. I know they trapped it, but typically they come back again,” he stated.

“It truly is most likely been hanging all-around city, or not far too significantly from city, for some time and obtained rather applied to individuals.”

As considerably as Const. Dennis is aware, this is the only shop in Pincher Creek that this bear has damaged into. And he does not consider it was intentional. “There was almost nothing in there for a bear to want.”

“I feel something spooked the bear and it bolted and ran via the window.”