There were a few tense moments on the weekend when a female grizzly with two cubs charged and followed campers near the Divide 200 race course in western Canada; luckily, the race was safely rerouted and no racers, campers or animals were injured. The race began Friday at Castle Mountain Resort in Pincher Creek Municipality, Alta., 216 km south of Calgary.
Sinister Sports co-founder Brian Gallant issued a statement about the incident:
“On Sunday, late in the evening, we were notified by local Emergency Services of a potential bear attack near Window Mountain Lake. We immediately began investigating the whereabouts of all our runners to determine if any were in the area at the time of the incident. We have confirmed that none of our participants were near the location. Out of an abundance of caution, we halted all runners approaching Checkpoint 8, which is located north of the reported area. A course diversion was implemented to fully avoid the affected zone.”
“It turns out that two campers at Window Mountain Lake were charged and followed by a grizzly bear and her two cubs, and both of these individuals were unharmed. After being cleared to continue the race, we opted to keep the reroute in place, so that we could ensure subsequent runners were not being advantaged or disadvantaged, and to ensure we stayed clear of the area, given that the bears could still be around. I want to say how proud I am of my team for how quickly and professionally they handled this emergency. From a management standpoint, everything was nearly flawless in execution.”
Race results
After taking the lead at approximately 10 km into the race and not looking back, Alberta’s Keith Harder won the race, a 200-mile (322-km) ultra along the Great Divide trail, which straddles the Alberta/B.C. border. His time was 60 hours, 55 minutes and 21 seconds. St. Albert, Alta.’s Brennan Fawcett was second, in 65:01:51 and Adam Butson of Calgary was third, in 65:16:19.
On the women’s side, Selene Mallone of Toronto took top honours, finishing in 72:31:17 for seventh overall, with Lethbridge, Alta.’s Chelsey Topping in a strong second position; at the time of publication, no other women had finished the course.
This is the third iteration of The Divide 200, western Canada’s first-ever 200-mile race, which includes the southern Rockies, and has checkpoints only every 20 km to 40 km. Climbing a gut-busting 12,335 metres of elevation, with a time limit of 100 hours, participants must be highly experienced ultrarunners, and they truly test their limits in the Rocky Mountains.
Harder won the Black Spur Ultra in 2023 and went on to win the Oldman Backyard Ultra in Lethbridge, Alta., in May 2025, after being the assist to winner Matthew Shepard at Oldman last year.
At the time of publication, there were still 22 runners in the race.
For full results, click here.
