You're out on a hike — or in search of a certain, oft-elusive purple berry — and suddenly, there's a bear wandering across your path.

Do you know what to do?

Perhaps your apple tree is laden with fruit or you are raising chickens and bees for the eggs and honey.

Can the bear wander in and help itself?

That's where the upcoming North Idaho Bear Fair — set from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27 — comes in. Held at the Bonner County Fairgrounds, 4203 N. Boyer Road, the event is designed to provide residents with practical information on how to protect your livestock as well as living in bear country.

If you live in North Idaho, you live in bear country, plain and simple, Idaho Fish and Game officials said.

"North Idaho is home to both black and grizzly bears, and living and recreating safely in their midst requires intentionality and specific training and skills," said T.J. Ross, a regional communications manager for Idaho Fish and Game.

The event is free and registration is not required. Free food will be provided for those who attend, and those attending can enter to win free prizes.

The event includes bear spray training using inert bear spray canisters on Fish and Game's remote-controlled charging grizzly bear. In addition, participants will learn the basics of how to protect livestock, chicken coops, animals and beehives with electric fencing, and have the chance to use a large press to make fresh cider with their apples. The fair will also offer information about a livestock carcass pickup program, a collaboration between Fish and Game and the Office of Species Conservation, and camping safety in bear country as well as a host of other helpful information.

While held in Boundary County its first two years, this year's event will be held at the Bonner County Fairgrounds on Sept. 27. The hope is that by expanding the fair's footprint by moving the location, as many people as possible can take part in the bear safety training.

Bears are common in the region, with black and grizzly bears reported from Bonners Ferry to Priest Lake to Coeur d'Alene, making bear safety training important for everyone in the region, fair organizers said.

"The main thing is to reduce human conflict with not just grizzly bears and black bears but bears in general," Shelby Therrian, wildlife division manager for the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, said previously. "We all need to know to safely recreate in the backcountry and, most importantly, reduce bear conflict."

Those skills include everything from knowing how to use bear spray properly to how to fence off your chicken coops to gleaning your apples after they ripen instead of letting them fall.

"We need to coexist with bears in general in North Idaho," she said. "So how do we do that safely so that it's good for humans and bears?"

Area residents can also boost their bear awareness on their property by eliminating food attractants, such as chicken feed or dog food left on a porch, trash left in an easy-for-a-bear-to-open garbage can, or a chicken coop that lacks an electric fence.

"You want to make sure your properties are ready so that if a bear does come by, you're protected and hopefully it deters the bear away on the first try," Therrian said.

North Idaho Bear Fair is a partnership among Fish and Game, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife Services, the Idaho Governor's Office of Species Conservation, the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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