A career exploration geologist is not only upset, but mystified by charges of safety infractions laid against a local company after an employee was killed in the field by a bear last year.

Al Doherty told the Star today that if the Yukon Workers Compensation Health and Safety Board (WCB) thinks it's sending some kind of safety message to the exploration industry, it's flat-wrong.

The only thing the WCB has done by filing the five charges against Aurora Geosciences Ltd. is open a gigantic can of uncertainty, he argues. That's not just for exploration companies, but for the big game outfitting business, wilderness tourism operators, river companies ....

'Everybody who puts people out in the wilderness as employees should be concerned about this,' said Doherty.

The exploration industry takes safety very seriously, and has made it a priority for the past 30 years, he added.

Field workers are given the necessary safety courses. They're taught bear awareness skills and shown how to use bear deterrents like bear spray and such, he said.

Doherty said he himself taught the late Jean-Francois PagÈ a bear safety course in 2005, the year before his death.

'I hope the legal system sees this for what it is: this was a bear attack!'

Doherty said the exploration industry in general is ready to go to the wall to fight these charges.

The 28-year-old PagÈ was killed by a sow grizzly on April 28, 2006 while out staking minerals 30 kilometres east of Ross River.

He was reported missing by crew members after they were unable to raise him on the portable radio.

RCMP officers and a local conservation officer located the man's body by helicopter. They subsequently shot the sow that was still near the site, and later killed the two cubs as they were deemed to young to survive on their own.

The health and safety board filed five charges against Aurora last week.

The charges are:

failing to ensure that equipment and processes under the employer's control were safe and without risks to health;

failing to ensure that work procedures were adopted and used that will prevent or reduce the risk of occupational illness or injury;

failing to ensure that workers were given necessary instruction and training and were adequately supervised, taking into account the nature of the work;

failing to ensure that workers were made aware of hazards in the work; and

the supervisor failed to ensure that the worker uses or wears the equipment, protective devices required under the relevant act, or by the nature of the work.

Kurt Dieckmann, the board's director of occupational health and safety, said today the board doesn't file charges to send messages.

It lays charges when it believes an infraction of the health and safety legislation has been committed charges which are reviewed by the government's Department of Justice before they're laid, he said.

Dieckmann said he is not at liberty to discuss any specifics of the case.

'We do not send messages, we enforce legislation,' Dieckman said. 'Through our investigation, we found something where we felt the law was not followed, and that is why we laid the charges.'

Safety board spokesman Mark Hill said today the board will not be making public its report into the fatality, as the Justice department has advised against releasing it.

It's felt that releasing the findings of the health and safety board at this point could prejudice the legal proceedings, he said.

Mike Power, a senior partner with Aurora Geoscience, said he cannot comment, as the matter has been sent to the company's lawyers for review. He did say, however, that the charges caught him by surprise.

Doherty said the five charges seem to suggest the industry doesn't take safety seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said.

Essentially, Doherty emphasized, PagÈ unknowingly walked right next to a bear den occupied by a sow grizzly and two cubs.

It's an inherent danger while working in the bush, not a lack of safety training, he said.

Doherty noted the last exploration worker to be attacked by a bear in the Yukon was himself, 22 years ago, back in 1985 while working in the Wheaton River Valley.

At no time did he ever think it was his employer's fault, he said.

There is no way to eliminate the possibility of a bear attack absolutely other than to pull workers out of the bush, he suggested.

Doherty said with the emphasis the industry has placed on safety, it's almost as though the charges are mean-spirited, issued out of a belief by the WCB that the industry doesn't take safety seriously.

The charges have left companies wondering what exactly they need to do that they haven't already done for safety precautions, he said.

See letter, p. 11.