bears and...bears. oh my.
Yesterday was my day off. Mid-day, I laid in my messy, small tent, and the sun beat down through the thick white canvas.
Suddenly there was commotion, people yelling in excitement, exclamations, “OH MY GOD!” and one resounding “THAT’S THE COOLEST SHIT EVER!”
James and I ran out of the tent just in time to miss it. A moose and calf, wet from swimming in the river, running through camp, being chased by a grizzly bear.
The bear hung around most of the day, eating out of our dumpsters and frightening employees walking between base camp and “Turquoise,” the spill-over employee housing.
Later in the afternoon James and I walked down to Turquoise, barely trailing the bear, but unknowingly. Two of our co-workers approached us, nervous and pale.“ We saw you guys walking down here and wanted to warn you. There’s a huge grizzly bear down there. He went into Turquoise. Be really careful.”
We were excited; we wanted to see the bear. We went down into camp.
As we walked, (safe from the grizzly, because of the number of people around) everyone was watching for the bear. I hadn't before realized that everyone in Alaska carried a gun. Every person we passed was holding bear spray or an air horn, and a surprising number held pistols for protection. No one wanted to hurt the bear, but no one wanted to be mauled either. At the end of the trail, our last chance to see the bear, all we found was a group of employees at a camp fire. They were, like everyone else, talking about the grizzly. “There have been no documented cases of a bear attacking a group of more than three people,” the group of five explained, and continued their beer drinking and chatting.
It was 10:00 at night. The sun was still shining brightly, and the fire, in broad daylight didn’t hold its usual draw. We wandered back down the trail, feeling like the only two around who hadn’t seen the camp bear.
A company van pulled up, and out came Brooke, our bubbly, outgoing safari director, with a serious look on her face, and Minto, the quirky, soft-spoken hiking guide, with a huge shotgun slung over his shoulder. The shotgun held rubber bullets, to scare the bear away from where we lived and worked.
“Where is the bear?” they asked. We told them we didn’t know. Their radio buzzed, and they learned that the bear had been sighted upstream, towards town. This bear was not scared of people like most; most bears would not pass the human barrier of our camp.
We piled into the van, and headed up to see the bear. On a cliff, above where the bear was fishing, we spotted it, 100 feet away. A group of tourists stood taking pictures of each other. “Hey, did you guys see that grizzly?” we asked. “You’re shitting me!?” they exclaimed, completely unaware of the nearby sight, and we pointed them to the shore. They ran off in its direction.
We watched the grizzly for a while, discussed its size (400 to 600 pounds), and called people we knew who lived or worked farther in town. Then we drove home and went to bed, heads buzzing with the excitement of the day...
Today, James and I went on a bike ride to see Russian Falls, where the salmon hop up the river where the go to breed and then die..
We got the closest, longest view of a grizzly we could have hoped for. Just across the river, 50 feet away, was a young one, maybe 3 years old, fishing in the river. We watched for 45 minutes.
Here's the bear
And a photo
We have a video of the fish hopping too, but I have to get the file size down before I can put it on you tube.
and here is us:
Suddenly there was commotion, people yelling in excitement, exclamations, “OH MY GOD!” and one resounding “THAT’S THE COOLEST SHIT EVER!”
James and I ran out of the tent just in time to miss it. A moose and calf, wet from swimming in the river, running through camp, being chased by a grizzly bear.
The bear hung around most of the day, eating out of our dumpsters and frightening employees walking between base camp and “Turquoise,” the spill-over employee housing.
Later in the afternoon James and I walked down to Turquoise, barely trailing the bear, but unknowingly. Two of our co-workers approached us, nervous and pale.“ We saw you guys walking down here and wanted to warn you. There’s a huge grizzly bear down there. He went into Turquoise. Be really careful.”
We were excited; we wanted to see the bear. We went down into camp.
As we walked, (safe from the grizzly, because of the number of people around) everyone was watching for the bear. I hadn't before realized that everyone in Alaska carried a gun. Every person we passed was holding bear spray or an air horn, and a surprising number held pistols for protection. No one wanted to hurt the bear, but no one wanted to be mauled either. At the end of the trail, our last chance to see the bear, all we found was a group of employees at a camp fire. They were, like everyone else, talking about the grizzly. “There have been no documented cases of a bear attacking a group of more than three people,” the group of five explained, and continued their beer drinking and chatting.
It was 10:00 at night. The sun was still shining brightly, and the fire, in broad daylight didn’t hold its usual draw. We wandered back down the trail, feeling like the only two around who hadn’t seen the camp bear.
A company van pulled up, and out came Brooke, our bubbly, outgoing safari director, with a serious look on her face, and Minto, the quirky, soft-spoken hiking guide, with a huge shotgun slung over his shoulder. The shotgun held rubber bullets, to scare the bear away from where we lived and worked.
“Where is the bear?” they asked. We told them we didn’t know. Their radio buzzed, and they learned that the bear had been sighted upstream, towards town. This bear was not scared of people like most; most bears would not pass the human barrier of our camp.
We piled into the van, and headed up to see the bear. On a cliff, above where the bear was fishing, we spotted it, 100 feet away. A group of tourists stood taking pictures of each other. “Hey, did you guys see that grizzly?” we asked. “You’re shitting me!?” they exclaimed, completely unaware of the nearby sight, and we pointed them to the shore. They ran off in its direction.
We watched the grizzly for a while, discussed its size (400 to 600 pounds), and called people we knew who lived or worked farther in town. Then we drove home and went to bed, heads buzzing with the excitement of the day...
Today, James and I went on a bike ride to see Russian Falls, where the salmon hop up the river where the go to breed and then die..
We got the closest, longest view of a grizzly we could have hoped for. Just across the river, 50 feet away, was a young one, maybe 3 years old, fishing in the river. We watched for 45 minutes.
Here's the bear
Click to viewAnd a photo
We have a video of the fish hopping too, but I have to get the file size down before I can put it on you tube.
and here is us: