All 3 of my close up encounters were with black bears in the Michigan UP.

1. 10 yrs old fishing with dad for trout. Waded upstream and planned to fish down. It was pouring down rain and the stream was rising rapidly. I decided that I should get back so I started wading down stream. I reached a place that the water had risen enough that I couldn't wade it. I crawled up the bank and it was tight scrub and a lot of huckleberry bushes. I found a beaten down path that I started following down stream. 50 yds or so i came to a sharp turn in the path. It's raining so hard that I could barely see. I "bump" into something and suddenly realize that I'm right next to a bear. We both dove into the brush on opposite sides of the trail. I jumped into the stream and ran/floated/swam the mile back to where Dad and I started. Can't remember if I s**t my pants.
2. My parents had a rustic cabin on Lake Gogebic. The restroom was an outhouse 30 yds down the hill. Had to make a nature call in the middle of the night and took a flashlight and started down the hill. It was fairly moonlit so I didn't turn the light on, halfway down the trail I heard a noise next to me and turned on the light. Another blackie 2' away. We both yelped, turned and ran. I remember not having to go to the can at night ever again up there.
3. Again at the cabin, dad was playing cards one night with some of his friends who came up for a few days. The old case of the boys escaping from the war departments for a few days of fishing, drinking, and friendly poker games. As the kid in camp I got to fetch the beer, ice, and food while they played. I walked out of the lighted area to where the beer cooler was and saw a bear sitting right next to the coolers. He was biting the cans and drinking the beer. I ran back to the porch and told them a bear was drinking their beer. had it been the food coolers of fish coolers it wouldn't have been so bad, the guys grabbed whatever they could find as a weapon and ran over to save their beer. The bear was just sitting there holding a can to his mouth. It looked so comical the lynch mob just started laughing.