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Keith,
I enjoyed the page. Nice work. I too have a fascination with bear attacks. I'm a wildlife biologist and a frequent visitor to some of the more ursine areas of Alaska. I think the most informative on this subject today is Dr. Steve Herrero. I think he is still at U. of Calgary right now. He is unquestionably the world expert on bear/human interaction and his book, Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance is required reading.
I can also tell you that after running into a 900lb coastal griz in Alaska, I stopped carrying my dinky .44 magnum. After coming face-to-face with that big boy, I knew that I was just going to make him madder. The guy next to me had a .454 Casull and it didn't make me feel one bit better. Now I carry a Winchester Defender with an 8-shot tube anytime I'm in Alaska. When I'm backpacking, I take the stock off and replace it with a pistol grip and stick in the ski tubes on my pack. It's filled with an assortment of buckshot and slugs. That is now my "bear minimum", or the "bear necessities" as I like to say. In National Parks I'm still forced to resort to pepper spray, but be assured it's the large 1lb fire extinguisher type.
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