My experience with black bears as well. They fuck off as soon as they see you.
Grizzlies seemed more annoyed, like "Why's there a human in my woods? I just wanna chill."
So depending on their mood, they'll usually check you out, maybe try to get you to fuck off, and failing that, grudgingly walk away.

I actually missed the number one protection against bear (and cougar) attacks in my post:
Have a hiking partner and talk to them. Or sing to yourself.
That reduces the chance of even encountering a bear by a lot cause they hear you coming and avoid you well in advance.
The drawback is you won't get to see a bear.

Our bear safety trainer actually said step 1 in a bear encounter is: Take out your camera.
It puts you in a more reasonable mindset, cause almost no encounters lead to attacks. And you can take some sweet pictures.

Meanwhile in Finland

Look up

I always struggled with that, too, until my cousin taught me to use Cassiopeia. The other constellations use way too complex of shapes and require accuracy, and they're not super-bright.

Cassiopeia looks like a W or M. Look for 5 dots that could possibly form an ugly W where the left side is wider and more shallow than the right. It'll genuinely stand out like this.

There it is!

Now, mentally draw a straight line across the tips of the shallow side of the W. Then, draw a straight line through that starting from the bottom of the shallow side. You'll get something like an arrow shape. Keep following that perpendicular line away from the W until you find something nearby the line that is noticeably bright. That's Polaris!

After you find that, you can confirm you found the right star by looking for the dippers and shit.

Live somewhere dark enough and gain pattern recognition

Edit: This was kind of unhelpful, so I'll also recommend Stellarium. The Big Dipper is comprised of very bright stars, and is visible in the northern hemisphere year-round, so it's a good first constellation to learn. Once you get used to how it looks both on stellarium and in the night sky, you'll be better equipped to extrapolate how other constellations should look in the night sky, given how they look on stellarium. Once you start building those neural pathways, it gets a lot easier.

I realize this is basically just "git gud" but for astronomy, but it really is a matter of experience, not skill

Great question! Use https://stellarium-web.org/ and set it for your latitude or location, according to your preference, and then look toward the northern sky. You can set the app to highlight the constellations.

I mean, it definitely makes you warmer. In that it shunts your blood to the outer layer of your body, warming your skin and making you feel less cold. Problem is, this actually makes you lose heat more rapidly, and increases your susceptibility to hypothermia. But since you can experience "drink alcohol, feel warmer" yourself, the myth will probably persist indefinitely.

Sadly, I think some people believe it.

But other people think you get sick from being outside in the cold

Yes. It's where the old meme of St Bernards carrying little flasks of alcohol came from. The idea was if you were injured in the cold, alcohol would warm you up.

You may feel warmer. But it actually lowers your core temp, IIRC.

It actually was the case, in the olden days.

The classic image of St. Bernard rescue dogs carrying tiny barrels of brandy for the benefit of hypothermic travellers was a myth though.

I don't know how much so practically, but it perseveres at least in tongue in cheek references to "putting on your whiskey jacket"

So I'm gonna die anyway, but with the taste of piss in my mouth? Fuck that.