‘Courageous and strong’ B.C. man dies three weeks after fighting off grizzly bear

A British Columbia man who fought off a grizzly bear in the East Kootenay region this month has died of his injuries, more than three weeks after the attack.

Joe Pendry’s wife, Janice Pendry, says he died on Saturday morning, from what doctors believed was a blood clot that led to cardiac arrest.

“I’m just at a loss,” Janice Pendry said. “It’s just hard. It was unexpected. The night before, he was doing just fine. He was laughing, he was kidding. He was sitting up, he was eating, joking around being the old Joe.”

She said her husband, 63, had recently been able to walk in Kelowna General Hospital.

“They (hospital staff) were starting to get him up, and walking in a big, tall walker and sitting up in a wheelchair, and things like that,” she said.

She previously described how her husband initially survived the Oct. 2 attack that took place near Fort Steele, northeast of Cranbrook, while he was hunting elk.

Janice Pendry had said that her husband, a former boxer, had punched and even bitten the bear after it charged him and he shot it in the leg. The bear was driven off and the BC Conservation Officer Service said it was later found dead.

Tiffany Aubin, Joe Pendry’s daughter, said in an emailed statement that her father died of complications and that her family is deeply saddened by his loss as a father and grandfather.

“RIP dad,” she wrote on Facebook. “You fought a good fight.”

Aubin said her father was “courageous and strong” and her family will find him whenever the “leaves change colour” and “when the wind blows.”

“When we see the elk and deer around us, we know you will be near,” Aubin wrote.

Janice Pendry said the public would remember her husband as a “fighter right to the end” but also as a “compassionate” person with a “heart of gold.”

She said preparations for a memorial service next month have started. “He’s well loved,” Pendry said. “In fact, we are trying to find a place that will hold enough people, because I know for a fact that its going to be packed.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 27, 2025.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press