it.
Troy Hurtubise was as good as his word: he went out west to test his suit against a Kodiak bear, and a couple of weeks later, we called him back to find out how it went. It turned out that I had indeed hit the nail on the head with that questionabout the bear maybe being more frightened of Troy in his suit than the other way around—sort of.
ML: Mr. Hurtubise, how’d it go?
TH: Well, I didn’t get actual contact, but I got everything else I needed. I found out whether the suit would be able to handle the pressure. The other fascinating thing was—I guess the irony of it all—was that the bears are terrified of the suit. They wouldn’t come near it.
ML: Well, I told you that!
TH: I sensed that over the years, but I didn’t think against a Kodiak …
ML: Tell us in detail what you did. You were going to go against this Kodiak …
TH: Yes. The handler himself had never seen the Ursus Mark VI other than on TV, so when I got up there with the suit, he looked at me and said, “Well, I want to get my bear accustomed to the suit. So without you in it, I’m going to bring it into his cage.”
I said, “Sure, no problem at all.”
So he brought it in, and we slowly worked the bear to get used to the suit, and at one point, he said, “Okay, you can have it,” and to our surprise, the Kodiak actually claimed the suit. And if you know bears “claiming,” it’s like a kill. It’s
his.
He took it underneath him. So that was pretty scary.
ML: Oh. Aren’t you glad you weren’t in it?
TH: Well, yeah, at that time, yes, because what I wanted to know was—it wasn’t built for a Kodiak—so I wanted to know, would he be able to crush it like a pop can?
ML: And?
TH: No. He tried everything he could. That got him mad, so he started to go at the rubber, and of course, he was taking pieces of the rubber off—we expected that—and then he got to the chain mail, and that’s where the problems started. He was peeling back the chain mail like it was a banana.
ML: Uh-oh.
TH: Because it’s not shark chain mail.
ML: It’s not
shark
chain mail?
TH: No. You see, real chain mail is shark chain mail used for great white sharks.
ML: Right. That has to be strong.
TH: When we shot the movie with the [National] Film Board and I was building the suit, we didn’t have time to get that, so I went with butcher’s chain mail, which is fine against a grizzly, not a Kodiak. So we had a heck of a time getting the suit back from him. We finally got the suit out, and I mean there was chunks taken out of it.… No problem; once he got to the titanium, it wasn’t a problem.
ML: The titanium held up. It wasn’t squashed.
TH: It wasn’t squashed, which was a great success for me. So he took me aside and said, “Listen. Not against this bear; not with this chain mail. I will not allow you to do that.”
ML: “Don’t want to see you killed.”
TH: Sure. So he said, “But I have a 320 -pound grizzly …” And I said, “Wow. That’s great.”
He said, “I have more than enough confidence in your suit against the grizzly bear, without even me here—like,inside the cage—that if she actually took you to the ground and had fun with you type of thing, you’d be okay. And I said, “Well, that’s great.” So I got in the suit, walked in the cage by myself—there’s this 320 -pound grizzly—and, sure enough, not so much to my surprise but to his, there was no way on this earth that that bear was going to come near that suit. There was no way. See, he assumed that, okay, if she becomes accustomed to it, then she’ll investigate. No. I mean, forget it.
So now Troy Hurtubise had the grizzly thoroughly cowed by his bear-proof suit, and the Kodiak, at least, had managed not to completely destroy it, but still he wasn’t satisfied. He persuaded the handler to give him another crack at the Kodiak, and this time he
would
be wearing the suit. He thought the bear might have more respect for the suit if it was standing up,
Troy Hurtubise was as good as his word: he went out west to test his suit against a Kodiak bear, and a couple of weeks later, we called him back to find out how it went. It turned out that I had indeed hit the nail on the head with that questionabout the bear maybe being more frightened of Troy in his suit than the other way around—sort of.
ML: Mr. Hurtubise, how’d it go?
TH: Well, I didn’t get actual contact, but I got everything else I needed. I found out whether the suit would be able to handle the pressure. The other fascinating thing was—I guess the irony of it all—was that the bears are terrified of the suit. They wouldn’t come near it.
ML: Well, I told you that!
TH: I sensed that over the years, but I didn’t think against a Kodiak …
ML: Tell us in detail what you did. You were going to go against this Kodiak …
TH: Yes. The handler himself had never seen the Ursus Mark VI other than on TV, so when I got up there with the suit, he looked at me and said, “Well, I want to get my bear accustomed to the suit. So without you in it, I’m going to bring it into his cage.”
I said, “Sure, no problem at all.”
So he brought it in, and we slowly worked the bear to get used to the suit, and at one point, he said, “Okay, you can have it,” and to our surprise, the Kodiak actually claimed the suit. And if you know bears “claiming,” it’s like a kill. It’s
his.
He took it underneath him. So that was pretty scary.
ML: Oh. Aren’t you glad you weren’t in it?
TH: Well, yeah, at that time, yes, because what I wanted to know was—it wasn’t built for a Kodiak—so I wanted to know, would he be able to crush it like a pop can?
ML: And?
TH: No. He tried everything he could. That got him mad, so he started to go at the rubber, and of course, he was taking pieces of the rubber off—we expected that—and then he got to the chain mail, and that’s where the problems started. He was peeling back the chain mail like it was a banana.
ML: Uh-oh.
TH: Because it’s not shark chain mail.
ML: It’s not
shark
chain mail?
TH: No. You see, real chain mail is shark chain mail used for great white sharks.
ML: Right. That has to be strong.
TH: When we shot the movie with the [National] Film Board and I was building the suit, we didn’t have time to get that, so I went with butcher’s chain mail, which is fine against a grizzly, not a Kodiak. So we had a heck of a time getting the suit back from him. We finally got the suit out, and I mean there was chunks taken out of it.… No problem; once he got to the titanium, it wasn’t a problem.
ML: The titanium held up. It wasn’t squashed.
TH: It wasn’t squashed, which was a great success for me. So he took me aside and said, “Listen. Not against this bear; not with this chain mail. I will not allow you to do that.”
ML: “Don’t want to see you killed.”
TH: Sure. So he said, “But I have a 320 -pound grizzly …” And I said, “Wow. That’s great.”
He said, “I have more than enough confidence in your suit against the grizzly bear, without even me here—like,inside the cage—that if she actually took you to the ground and had fun with you type of thing, you’d be okay. And I said, “Well, that’s great.” So I got in the suit, walked in the cage by myself—there’s this 320 -pound grizzly—and, sure enough, not so much to my surprise but to his, there was no way on this earth that that bear was going to come near that suit. There was no way. See, he assumed that, okay, if she becomes accustomed to it, then she’ll investigate. No. I mean, forget it.
So now Troy Hurtubise had the grizzly thoroughly cowed by his bear-proof suit, and the Kodiak, at least, had managed not to completely destroy it, but still he wasn’t satisfied. He persuaded the handler to give him another crack at the Kodiak, and this time he
would
be wearing the suit. He thought the bear might have more respect for the suit if it was standing up,
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