The "designated campsite" was supposedly a factor in the famous mauling of a German guy who was canoeing around Bowron Lakes -- east of Quesnel -- with his fiancee in the early 90s. They were camping in a designated spot when a grizzly attacked them in their tent in the middle of the night.
Well, I've now looked up the details of that attack, and I see I misremembered some of them. The place where I'm finding the information is on pages 94-98 of the book I recommended by James Gary Shelton, BEAR ENCOUNTER SURVIVAL GUIDE.
The attack occurred June 10, 1994, at Isaac Lake, in Bowron Lakes Park, east of Quesnel, BC. The young man was 26, a German doctor doing an internship in Seattle. His fiancee was on vacation from Germany. They were camped at the Lynx Creek Campsite in a tent, and were attacked at 0700 -- not in the middle of the night -- by a black bear, not a grizzly.
The bear tore open the tent. The woman was able to get under her sleeping pad, but the man rolled on top to protect her. The bear began to tear the man apart, and during the melee, the woman was able to enlarge a tear in the tent and escape. She ran to an old cabin nearby, in which they had stored their gear, and grabbed an axe that was in the cabin. Returning to the tent area, she found the bear dragging her fiancee off into the bush. She struck the bear on the back of the neck with the axe, and it dropped the man and ran off. With great difficulty, the man crawled to the cabin with the woman helping him.
Inside the cabin, she dressed his wounds, gave him water, and lit a fire. She decided that she had to go for help, but when she stepped outside, the bear had returned. She hit the bear with a chunk of wood and ran for the canoe. The man was able to latch the door of the cabin. While the woman was paddling down the lake toward a ranger station several hours away, the bear returned and tried repeatedly to get into the cabin. Between fainting spells, the man was occasionally able to hit the walls of the cabin with the axe, making enough noise to keep the bear from breaking in.
The woman happened upon rangers in a motorboat, and they summoned a helicopter. All the help arrived at the cabin at 10:45 -- nearly four hours after the initial attack.
The man was initially in critical condition and required 300 stitches, but did recover, more or less.
The investigation showed that the two campers had kept an extremely clean, food-free camp. The attack was clearly a predatory attack in which the bear intended to eat a human.
Shelton discusses some of the lessons from this incident, and again I recommend reading what he has to say. Black bears are more likely than grizzlies to prey on humans, but both kinds of bears sometimes regard humans as food. It depends on the physical and mental health of the bear and the supply of its "normal" food.
