Hunter Jay Stafford was packing up a butchered elk in a remote valley when he heard a roar on a nearby hill that he assumed was just the wind.
But then he found himself knocked down by a male grizzly bear while the grizzly's mother attacked his father.
"You don't want to think a grizzly is coming after you," Mr. Stafford said from a hospital bed Tuesday.
He said he and his father, Terry, had been hunting at the headwaters of the Halfway River, west of Pink Mountain, B.C., and were getting ready to pack up an elk kill when the two bears attacked.
"We were two days up the valley with horses," Mr. Stafford, 28, said.
He said the younger grizzly, which his father estimated to be about three years old, stood on its hind legs, knocked him to the ground and began to maul his right leg.
The female attacked Mr. Stafford's father, knocking him down an embankment.
Another cub did not attack and stayed back from the other two bears.
The two attacking bears then turned their attention to the elk meat that lay near the younger man.
"At one point I thought they would go after the horses," he said.
Bleeding and bruised, Mr. Stafford struggled to his knees, and hoped the elk meat would distract the bears long enough for him to reach for his rifle.
"I had to or else I would have been dead," he said.
Mr. Stafford shot and killed the female and the two cubs ran off.
He said he called for his father, who had deep scratches on his back, multiple bruises and an injured ankle.
They were now faced with having to make their way back to their main camp on horseback and they didn't want to take the same trail they had taken coming into the site because one of the cubs had run back that way.
The alternate route meant crossing a stream, and as Mr. Stafford tried to lead the way, his horse lost its footing.
"He fell over with me on his back," he said, adding as the horse struggled to regain its balance, "he crawled over me and stepped on my ankle."
As he collected himself once again, Mr. Stafford's father found a safer crossing. The pair met up with two other hunting buddies who had accompanied them on the trip.
The group rode for more than five hours to their main horse camp near Pink Mountain Ranch.
At dawn on Tuesday, a helicopter flew Mr. Stafford and his father to Fort St. John hospital for treatment.
Mr. Stafford said he is feeling well, despite "a big hole" and several smaller ones in his right leg near the thigh, and some severe scratches on his back.
"I live all year to go hunting in the fall," he said. "I'm going back as soon as I can."
But then he added: "Maybe not to the same spot."