 "Off
the bus and into the food chain"
— popular Alaskan tourist t-shirt.
In our case
the "bus" was an airplane, a 1956 Dehaviland Beaver on floats.
We took off
from Kodiak headed west across the Shelikof Strait aimed toward the
rocky Alaskan coast of Katmai National Park. Thirty minutes later, our
pilot, Willy, banked into a hidden harbor. Bumping across the tops of
wavelets, he cut the engine allowing us to glide the last few feet to
shore.
My friends
and I spilled out into the waist-high sedge grass and a sparkling blue
September day. We unloaded a pile of camping and photo gear and my
friends set off in search of a suitable spot to set up camp, leaving me
to keep an eye on the gear.
Well-worn
animal trails wound their way through the sedge just above the high tide
line. It wasn’t long before a furry brown head popped up on the other
side of the small inlet; a grizzly no doubt and headed this way, his
curious amble taking on a purposeful edge as he stopped directly across
from me, a few yards of water separating the strong and fast from the
weak and slow. I pulled my weapon, a canister of pepper spray, and for
the first time in years of carrying the stuff, removed the safety. The
bruin hesitated briefly then launched, sailing like a humongous flying
squirrel, crashing into the inlet, missing his fish target.
Relieved and
a little embarrassed, I collected myself. After all, grizzlies —
commonly called brown bears along the coast — were why we came all the
way from Colorado. Though black bears still roam the wilds of the
Southwest, only the ghosts of grizzlies do, the last one killed in 1979
in the South San Juan Mountains less than 100 miles from my house,
likely the last member of a species already presumed exterminated in the
region since the early fifties.
And that is
what’s different about Alaska; the very name implies ultimate
wilderness, a final American landscape yet to shoulder the full weight
of human population and progress, still able to sustain great predators
like wolves and the big bears. You come across a pile of scat thick as
your wrist, a track big as a platter, maybe a glimpse of the animal
itself. In this country you move slowly with caution and humility, and
frequent glances over your shoulder. Here you’re welcomed back in time
to a land and order that just seems to make sense, though a little
scary. The rules are simple: keep warm, eat when you’re hungry, don’t
get hopelessly lost and mind your manners around animals bigger than
you.
We timed our
visit to this spot exactly because we knew there’d be bears, lots of
bears, stampeding to these salmon-filled streams like miners to gold.
Mostly solitary creatures, brown bears prefer around 600 square miles of
elbowroom when counting on berries, roots and the odd bonus of carrion.
Here they
worked that personal space requirement down to about 15 feet, grudgingly
tolerating each other — and the human visitors that have come to
observe. Though I’d spent plenty of time in bear country, previous
interactions had been brief and dramatic. I’d see the bear first, unless
they got my scent. Having scented or seen me, they turn tail, sometimes
slowly but more often running full tilt across rivers and up mountains
or crashing through forest to get away from me as if I were ten times
their size, had can openers for fingernails and fish-crushing jaws.
"What’s so
funny about peace, love and understanding?"
— Elvis Costello
Occasionally
the bears would glance toward us but they knew their business here and
they pursued it without distraction. This was the final pink salmon run
of the season, the last chance to fatten up for the approaching winter
nap.
Salmon live
in the open ocean but swim up these creeks and rivers to spawn before
dying. Tension filled the air as the bears jockeyed for best fishing
position along the stream. When a fish splashed in the shallow water all
bears in the vicinity would rush toward it. In the melee some type of
fisticuffs would often break out. Usually these altercations were
limited to a contest of bad breath as the bears roared, heads cocked,
into the wide-open fang-filled mouths of one another, saliva flying, but
scars and torn flesh proved that sometimes injuries were sustained.
When a
mother with spring triplets get onto one of these scrappy contests the
cubs would retreat in a pile then rise, in unison, to hind legs like
nervous sports fans for a better look, always touching, leaning, or
hiding behind each other as if stuck by Velcro. These motivated mothers
were among the best of fishers, tearing a fish in half, quickly gulping
her share and leaving the rest for the cubs, provoking a ruckus of
growling and bawling amongst the formerly friendly siblings. A vicious
tug-of-war might ensue, each tiny bear latching on to a choice morsel
with determination, racing along the gravel bar flipping and bouncing
off each other until one would finally lose grip.
Even when
fully grown and on their own litter mates continued to display fondness
for each other; litter mates encountering each other during the course
of the day would often stop and wrestle together signaling their desire
to play by swinging their heads side to side. We found this behavior
irresistibly charming and demanding of immediate human imitation which
we indulged but quickly ceased upon catching one of the wrestlers
looking our way with some interest.
"The lion
and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much
sleep."
— Woody Allen
The other
human visitors went "home" at night by either flying back to Kodiak or
staying in boats anchored offshore. Our party had little money or
interest in these guided affairs, preferring to camp in the area to take
full advantage of the early and late photographic light. Our first
evening, I counted 14 bears in the half-flooded bay. They splashed and
growled as dusk faded into darkness. More roaring came from unseen bears
further upstream. This scene, though one of incredible beauty, did not
encourage deep sleep.
 Camp
was situated off the beaten path but there were bear trails everywhere.
Rustling of
grass or leaves would rouse us many times each night. Sometimes bears
announced themselves with snorts, inhaling hard to get a scent of the
camp or beings inside the tents. We had set up a mildly electrified
livestock fence; an arrangement of wires supported by fiberglass wands
that surrounded the tents to keep the more curious bears at bay. You
might imagine bears would come barging into camp but they approach most
new situations with a cautious curiosity. Led in by a sensitive nose,
upon sniffing a slightly hot wire they would receive a discouraging zap.
Lying awake
in our sleeping bags, we felt like bear "sandwiches" from a Far Side
cartoon. I reason that bees kill around 50 people per year in the U.S.,
mosquito-delivered malaria about 1 million worldwide. The thought of
dying from one of these pests seems plenty miserable but comparatively
boring. Humans have always reserved a special fear; horror, undoubtedly
more prominent in the psyche of our aboriginal ancestors but now freshly
swept from a dusty corner of my contemporary mind, for a select few
animals. In his book Monsters of God, David Quammen gathers
together the baddest of the animal kingdom — less than 10 members
worldwide — into a purely psychological classification he calls Alpha
predators; lions, tigers, sharks, crocodiles, a few large snakes, and of
course, grizzly bears, beasts so ferocious that they can, and
occasionally do, hunt down, kill, and turn men — and women — into meat.
I comforted myself with statistics: in the 85-year history of Katmai
National Park there had never been a death from bear mauling. I could
not know that in fewer days and in fewer miles from this camp than could
be counted on four paws this perfect record would reach a dramatic end.
"When Death
comes, like a bear in autumn..." — Mary Oliver
On Sunday,
October 5, ten days after we left Katmai, Timothy Treadwell and Amie
Huguenard became the first victims of bear attack in the history of the
4.7 million-acre Katmai National Park at a lake just a few miles from
where we had been camped.
 Our
pilot had come to fetch the couple after a summer camping along the
coast, Treadwell’s 13th season of living with bears in Katmai. The
pilot, noting the camp in disarray, spotted a large boar standing over
remains of the couple near their camp.
Rangers
investigating the scene shot and killed a somewhat underweight but
healthy 28-year-old, 1,000-pound male brown bear as he charged them.
Another male, an adolescent bear that was hanging around the area, was
killed as well. Human remains were found only in the larger bear. There
had been a poor berry crop, perhaps causing the bear to be less tolerant
as he faced rapidly approaching hungry winter hibernation.
Treadwell
was one of a handful of bear activists investigating the physical and
emotional margins of the human/bear relationship. Telescopes and radio
collars placed on drugged bears aren’t the implements of trust and
intimacy. Treadwell’s research often found him cozying up close enough
to touch his subjects, talking to and even serenading them.
Evidence
gathered at the scene, including a 6-minute clip of audio from a video
camera, suggested Treadwell and Huguenard were in their tent when the
bear approached their camp and not during photography or other
interaction. They were, of course, camping in the middle of dense
grizzly country without bear spray or an electric fence, deterrents
Treadwell found distasteful in the pursuit of developing a bond with
animals he sought to understand, not mistrust.
His
controversial techniques drew criticism from some in the research
community when Treadwell was alive. After his death the mauling from the
media and public continued; "he got what he deserved" was leveled to
Treadwell by some saddened by the death of the bears but also by many
who used the scenario simply to justify their own terror or lack of
understanding of grizzlies. Treadwell’s death confirmed what we already
know about bears: they are capable of, but extremely unlikely to, attack
a person (a risk our culture seems to accept at a much higher incident
rate from domestic dog mauling which results in an average of 12 deaths
a year in this country). But his 36,000 incident-free hours spent with
bears on the Alaskan coast proved he was a hell of a lot closer to the
truth than centuries of propaganda and popular myth perpetuated by
government and ignorant individuals with economic agendas, manifest
destiny and fear on their minds.
The same
people who managed the eradication of the species in all but a few
isolated pockets in this country outside Alaska.
In the wake
of the Treadwell attack the Park Service did amend camping policy,
adding temporary closures to specific areas at important times of year
to already existing restrictions and guidelines. During our trip I had
developed my own uneasiness about camping so close to so many bears and
I would not be quick to repeat the experience. Being around the bears
during the day was one thing: people and bears, on foot and paw, can
move and skirt each other with a reasonable margin of comfort. In the
daylight, the bears did not appear disturbed or unduly curious. A camp,
however, seems to be more disruptive. New smells, interesting materials
and colors, and the aroma of cooking all possibly attract bears — expert
scavengers that eke out a living by being inquisitive. I remind myself;
the lessons of humility and order, the simple lessons that take me North
again and again, lessons with no teachers back home, are imbedded in
this land because of the presence of wolves and grizzlies but do not
come from the animals themselves.
"I am not an
adventurer by choice but by fate." — Vincent van Gogh
For the last
few days of the trip we moved further north into the Park. This time
hurriedly unloading the plane in surf that pounded the floats against
the gravel shore. In our haste we forgot the bear spray in the floats —
strategically stowed, as an accidental deployment would debilitate the
pilot. Our only weapons now: faith, a calm fa`E7ade and a large plastic
garbage bag, which we’d shake and crinkle to make noise when bears
approached the tent in the night.
Swinging a
machete, we worked to clear the grass from our new camp. A huge male
bear appeared from the brush. Steve recognized Vincent — a nickname
given for the bear’s lack of a right ear — from a year earlier.
Ironically, it’s these brutes, like the one implicated in the Treadwell
attack, the largest most quintessential ursine of Ursus arctos,
which worried me the least. They appear to be the gentlest of all bears,
more like buffalo, or bull cattle, seemingly content to lumber to some
fishing spot, or sleep off a fish-feeding coma, exhibiting neither the
troublesome curiosity of the adolescents nor the need to protect like
sows with cubs.
A wind storm
blew in from the interior mountains filling the air with ash from old
volcanic eruptions. Nylon tent walls snapped in the gale. Obsessive
listening became futile and for once I slept a little better.
The wind
died toward our final evening, the temperature dropped and darkness came
earlier now as fall progressed. I settled into my bag and drifted off.
 Sometime
in the night I was wakened by the sound of a bear splashing the lagoon,
then the steady crunch, crunch, crunch of the bruin
as he walked across the long sedge grass laid down by the receding tide
and frozen in the chilly Alaskan September night. I strained hard to
listen. Would his footsteps wax then wane as he passed below camp, or
would they wax only, meaning he was approaching camp? As I strained to
listen, the crunch, crunch, crunch transformed into
bump, babump, babump, the bear had passed, the
sounds of his footfalls replaced now with the sound of my own beating
heart. |