Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear

Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.

Employee Patti Mackenzie says she showed up for a shift at Pincher Office Products in the town of Pincher Creek on Monday to find the front window had a giant hole in it.

"I didn't know that somebody had broken the window until I got to work at 7 a.m. and the alarm was making a racket," she said.

"I came in and I shut it off, and I could hear voices… I turned around and Const. Dennis was standing in the hole."

As it turned out, RCMP had headed to the store once the alarm company alerted them to trouble, but the criminal who broke the window had already fled the scene when they arrived. Officers stood guard at the store until staff turned up.  

"He said they really had no idea what happened," Mackenzie said.

She got someone to come fix the broken window and another person to help her clean up the glass.

It wasn't until the next day when Patti and store owner Christine Lank reviewed the security footage that that they realized it was a black bear who had burst in.

"That's when we saw the bear, he was on Main Street looking in the front door and just carrying on … Then next thing you know you see the bear going fast up the aisle in the store.

A black bear broke into Pincher Office Products in Pincher Creek, Alta. (Patti Mackenzie)"He walked to the back door and he had a little look around, and strolled down the other aisle, and then off he went out the window."

Mackenzie thinks the bear was inside the store for about five minutes total.

"We had to get the pictures off the (security) camera to prove that it was true because most people were like, 'Nah, you're kidding.'"

Mackenzie says the uninvited visitor had to weigh 300 pounds.

A black bear broke into Pincher Office Products in Pincher Creek, Alta. (Patti Mackenzie)Though they had a 'bull in their china shop,' Mackenzie says the bear didn't break anything aside from the window.

"He disturbed nothing," she said. "We have all kinds of breakables in the store and he really could have done a good job at disturbing a lot of stuff."

"It was a very nice bear."

Mackenzie says a wildlife officer who responded told her the bear might have seen its own reflection in the glass window, prompting it to break through.