An interesting story
he largest grizzly bear ever shot in Alberta was taken back in 1953 by a 63-year-old Native woman. As the story goes, Bella Twin was picking berries near Slave Lake when she encountered a huge bear that had obviously decided the berries were his for the taking, and his alone. Defending herself the only way she could, Twin lifted the rifle she always carried, pointed it quickly and fired. The great bear fell to the ground, stone dead, a single shot to the brain. To this day, Twin’s grizzly stands as the longest-reigning provincial big-game record in Alberta, and it may well never be broken. There are varying accounts of the incident, but all agree on one thing: Twin did the job with the humblest of rifles, a single-shot .22.
The story of Twin’s bear illustrates an unfortunate fact that some hunters push to impractical and unethical extremes—that a lucky or expertly placed shot from virtually any firearm is capable of downing even the largest big-game animal. From a practical hunting standpoint, however, few are the times that Lady Luck enhances our shooting prowess, and fewer still are those who can honestly claim to be expert marksmen.