Brown Bear Encounter on the Kenai

6/19/2007

Hello from Alaska!

With summer solstice breathing down our necks, Alaska is in full swing! It’s been warm and sunny with temperatures in the 70’s, perfect weather to lure a guy away from town and down to the Kenai Peninsula.

So down I went to spend a few days with Lee, whose house just happens to be strategically located on the Kenai River, not a bad body of water this time of year. Actually it’s not a bad body of water any time of the year but particularly inviting during Alaska’s summer months.

On Saturday we enjoyed what began as a relaxing day with warm sunny weather and several hours of red salmon fishing on the bank of the Russian River. Lee and I were joined by one of Lee’s co-workers, Mike, and the three of us stood thigh deep, side by side, in the silty green glacier fed river as we casted about for the elusive red salmon (aka - Sockeye).

And the sockeye was indeed elusive as none were to be had. In fact, the only aquatic critters that were to be had that day were two trout that I managed to wrestle to the shore - one Dolly Varden and one Rainbow, both of which I released back into the river.

Suffice to say, the fishing was quite poor by Alaskan standards.

On the other hand, however, the wildlife viewing was exceptional, as you’ve most likely noticed from the enclosed photos. After fishing about an hour, we all three noticed a mother brown bear and two small cubs strolling along the bank directly across the river from us. At this sighting we all conferred and discussed plans of action in the event momma bear decided to pay a visit to our side of the river.

We were all aware that just last summer a fisherman on this exact river had been mauled and killed when he accidentally wandered between a mother brown bear and her cub. Mmmm…..too much similarity for comfort, I’d say.

The three of us kept a keen eye on that ominous trio as they scratched around looking for food, seemingly unaware, or at least unperturbed, by our presence or that of the other fishermen on the river.

Perfect, let’s keep it that way!

Over the next hour or so we would periodically see momma and cubs wandering out of the woods and over to the river, each time punching our adrenaline button as a precaution for the fight or flight response.

Fortunately, neither fight nor flight was to be needed for our opposite bank predators.

However, unknown to the three of us, the bear story was not quite concluded, despite the disappearance of our tricky trio back into the forest on the other side of the river.

Shortly after things settled down once again, I was alerted to a commotion on our side of the river and I watched as several fishermen were scurrying toward the river as a large brown bear was cavorting around in the bushes and weeds behind them. After a couple of tense minutes, the bear disappeared into the forest behind us and things were momentarily a bit calmer.

A bit calmer, I might say; but certainly not all calm due to two prominent stats that I was unable to successfully purge from my mind

• Number One - That brownie on our side of the river had just scattered fishermen that were no more than 30-40 yards from our location.
• Number Two - Adult brown bears can be of immense size (1,000 pounds) and very dangerous (fatal).

After his overt display of fearless tendencies I found myself instinctively wary and aware due to the events of the preceding two hours. I walked up the small bluff (20 feet or so) and looked along the river in both directions as well as out into the forest, all to no avail. All was calm with no signs of Mr. Troublemaker.

Time to relax again and get back to fishing.

With that, I went back down to the river and was talking to Lee and Mike for just a few minutes when, all of the sudden, we heard snapping and thrashing directly behind us. We immediately looked up to see Mr. Brownie peering over the edge of the bluff, no more than 10 yards from us.

Did I previously mention the term “adrenaline rush”? In hindsight, perhaps a tad overstated because I’ll guarantee you this - anyone who unexpectedly finds themselves face to face, 10 yards away from a huge adult brown bear will get an instantaneous education regarding the term “adrenaline rush”.

For the record, brown bears are the same bear as a grizzly bear. They live in Alaska’s coastal regions and, because of their high protein (fish) diet, are one third larger in size than a grizzly.

And in my book that means one third stronger, too!

Mmmmm……stronger than a grizzly bear.

And there I stood, 10 yards away, armed with a spinning rod and a wallet.

Hope he takes American Express!!

No luck! I cut up my American Express card and sent it back to them last year after they kept charging me $39 late fees on a $100 balance after I’d been in Alaska on long trips and didn’t get back in time to get my payment in on time.

But fortunately Mr. Brownie wasn’t in a spending mood and chose instead to follow the lead of his opposite bank compadres and saunter off into the forest.

Shortly thereafter we also decided that we’d had sufficient bonding time with the king of Alaska’s omnivores.

Hmmmm……I think the brown bear must be the king of Alaska’s omnivores (animals that eat both meat and veggies). The polar bear is bigger but I believe it eats only meat, making it, I would guess, a meatavore. We engineers are never very good at this linguistic stuff.

We are better suited for things like how many coins to put into a parking meter and explaining to a policeman how your latest automobile smog check caused your speedometer to read low by 25 mph, thereby offering a plausible reason for going 80 in a 55 mph zone.

Hope all is going well down South.

Love,

Dad