Did you ever get over the bear fear?
An interesting note for this old thread is that, statistically, you are actually safer from bears way out in the wilderness than on frequently crowded trails or in busy campgrounds. In these the bars have become familiar with people and know we always have easy food. Bad for us. "Send more tourists, the last ones were delicious." Bars way out in nowhere have that mutual fear of us spoken of earlier and still think we are probably too much of a fight to be worth it. We are not familiar to them. Of course, every once in a while curiosity might mess this statistic up, but generally.
Be safe, make a little noise, hang food, wash stuff and cook a ways away from camp, etc. All the regular precautions.

When I'm in bar-country, which we have a lot of here in Arizona, I generally pee a perimeter around my camp (a little ways off) and I always find myself laying awkward dead branches and stuff around my tent, between trees and such, especially when I feel exposed. My theory is that I will hear a Sasquatch (or bear) breaking thru the dry brush and wake up before it is upon me. Natural perimeter alarm. Don't really know if any of this works, I've just been doing it since I was a kid (a younger kid), and, well, I've never been eaten.