A SCREAM IN THE WILD

Alone on a mountain and pinned under a grizzly, Colin Dowler reached for a pocket knife and struggled for his life.

- Omar Mouallem

EVER SINCE HE WAS A KID growing up on Quadra Island, B.C., Colin Dowler pushed himself to do more, go faster and scale bigger heights, despite having a small physique and a nagging congenital knee disease. Jenifer, his wife of 16 years, often found herself telling him to slow down. When he skied, he raced the double-black diamond fanatics. When he rode his mountain bike, it was on the bumpiest terrain. If he wasn’t a little scared doing something, he didn’t think he was doing it right.

Last July, to celebrate his 45th birthday, he booked off a week from his job as a city facilities manager in Campbell River, B.C., where he lived with Jenifer and their two daughters. He also planned to spend two days on his own, scouting a route he’d eventually use to climb Mount Doogie Dowler with his older brother, Paul. The peak, standing around 2,000 metres in the Coast Mountains in southwestern B.C., was named after Dowler’s late grandfather. It had always been a point of pride for their family that Grandpa Doogie, a prominent community member who once owned the Heriot Bay Store and Post Office, a Quadra Island hub, was immortalized in nature. But none of the Dowlers had ever climbed to its summit. Colin tried once in his 20s and made it within a few hundred metres of the peak before getting rained out.

Jenifer didn’t like the sound of her husband’s latest plan. She was used to Dowler going on solo adventures, but this time he’d boat to an obscure bay, bike an unpopulated road, hike through grizzly country and camp overnight alone. There was too much room for disaster.

“If I’m not home by eight o’clock Monday evening, you should start to worry,” he said.

Jenifer laughed. It was practically her husband’s motto.