Troy Hurtubise

Troy James Hurtubise is an inventor from North Bay, Ontario noted for his bizarre, yet incredible, protective creations that he tests on himself.

Contents

History

Hurtubise's obsession with bears began in 1984, when he was 19-years-old and survived a skirmish with a grizzly bear he refers to as "the Old Man", while hiking near Humidity Creek in central British Columbia.

The encounter had a profound affect on Hurtubise. Returning to his home province of Ontario, he decided to learn as much about grizzlies as he could. However, he realized that due to the bear's fierce nature, it is very difficult get close enough to study them without physical danger, and he believed that drugging the animal would have its own undesirable consequences.

One day after enrolling in a college program, Hurtubise experienced an epiphany while watching Robocop in his college dorm, one which led to the Ursus series of protective suits. He decided to build a research suit that would be strong enough to survive a close encounter without harming the occupant.

Such a robo-bear suit would allow him to search for bears and answer important questioned such as: would pepper spray work in the field? What is bear behaviour in the den like? What are the signs of agitation, such as jaw popping, the dance on the front feet, slobbering, roaring? It is possible to study these signs at a distance, but Hurtubise wanted to see them from the bear's perspective.

Seven years and $150,000 later, Hurtubise had worked his way up the Mark VI, the suit he believed could protect him from a grizzly. In order to test it, Hurtubise consulted with professors of physics and asked them how to simulate a bear attack. The entire experience was recorded as a National Film Board documentary and called Project Grizzly, with many memorable scenes in which Hurtubise tested the capabilities of the suit using himself as the guinea pig.

Hurtubise approached a tall, heavy biker and his colleagues, and paid them to attack him while wearing the suit, with baseball bats, splitting mauls, and wooden two by fours. The suit survived, as did Hurtubise, while the weapons were reduced to splinters. Other tests included an impact by a swinging 300-pound log, a feat that the Ripley’s Believe It or Not television program later attempted with a BMW, as well as tossing him down the side of an escarpment.

Project Troy

Project Troy is the moniker given to the current stage of a 15-plus year effort undertaken by Hurtubise to develop protection suit technology. It began as a desire to create a suit capable of withstanding the viciousness of an enraged bear attack, but the process has developed ideas and technologies whose purposes go beyond simple bear attack protection and could benefit the world.

The current iteration of the suit, the Ursus Mark VII, is the 6th prototype that uses a few of the concepts and technologies developed by Hurtubise. The ultimate goal is the creation of a suit that would encompass all the concepts in their final form. This form would have the ability to protect against injury from riot, explosions, fire, and high velocity projectiles.

Part of the journey was documented as Project Grizzly, which was based on his book White Tape - An Authentic Behind The Scenes Look At Project Grizzly. He has appeared on numerous television programs; performed guest lecturing at schools of all levels including Harvard; has been interviewed on hundreds of radio programs from around the world; and has been written about in countless magazines and newspapers throughout the world.

Without any support from outside sources such as government, or private investment, and with previous business partners faltering, the journey has bankrupted him once and almost cost him his marriage. But with the support of family and friends, and with the backing of an investor, the Ursus Mark VII was completed and Project Troy was launched.

Firepaste

Firepaste is a white paste that, when dry, is flame and heat proof to the degree that it has caught the widespread attention of fire professionals. Like Project Grizzly, Hurtubise has tested the material himself, including putting a block of dried firepaste on his head and having a blowtorch apply flame to the topside. A thermometer located between his hair and the block measured no appreciable temperature change on the bottomside of the block, and the integrity of the material stood strong for a good length of time. Hurtubise is protective of ingredients for his concoction, but during a segment aired on Discovery Channel's daily news show Daily Planet, he revealed one secret to be Diet Pepsi.

1313 Paste

Hurtubise's latest project has been the creation of a new paste that he's called 1313 and believes could be put to good military use. It is a mixture of all his previous concoctions applied to a fiber pad and then subjected to high pressure for the period of a day in a press. The result is a bag-like object in similar size and shape to a baseball base. The bag can withstand a direct assault by shotgun slugs, rifle fire, and enough high explosive to demolish a car. At an enthusiastic demonstration taped by the Discovery Channel Canada, Troy displayed its capability to a Canadian military observer who walked away very impressed. It is Troy's desire to see military vehicles, currently in service in Afghanistan, equipped with such protection in order to stand up to a landmine explosion, a event that has already claimed the lives of Canadian soldiers serving there.

External References

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