Excerpts From The Life Of A Logging Camp Kid

Episode Fourteen: Grandiose Grizzly Bears

This Brown Bear photo was captured by my brother during his time in a camp on Afognak Island. All of our other bear pictures are hidden in the grand archive otherwise known as Mom and Dad's storage unit. Someday I will embark on a quest to liberate them from that hidden tomb...

Our logging camp was smack dab in the middle of the largest bear migration trail in North America. At least that is what some well-meaning or ornery adult told me shortly after we arrived. I believe that statement to be true based on personal observation and animal encounter experience. The sheer volume of both grizzly and black bears that we encountered on a daily basis was staggering. Think pigeons on a city block numerous.

We came to the camp from another island in Southeast Alaska, so we were well versed in co-inhabiting space with black bears. I knew that they had an affinity for used diapers, and that a smart person would probably keep a loaded Pamper in their pack while hiking for utilization as a diversionary method. We always used to laugh at the tourists and folks from Down South who had their whistles and bear spray. Hello dinner bell and meal seasoning! Many a time as a kid on Prince of Wales Island would I find myself fishing a salmon run with a black bear in the vicinity. There was so many fish that we didn't need to resort to man versus bear.

Grizzly bears, properly known as the North American Brown Bear, were a new creature for me to experience. One does not know how they will react to a creature the size of a Ford Bronco until they experience it in person. The first time I saw a brown bear I was riding ironically enough in a Ford Bronco with my dad and his boss to the job site. We were flying down the muddy sandstone road that led from camp to the logging site when I spied this gigantic bit of shaggy fluff in the road. The bear's back when it stood on all fours was Bronco hood high, and I remember my mouth hanging open in a silent, "wow." The wow-factor remained as we followed the retreating bear down the middle of the road at 50+ miles per hour. Also impressive was the serious amount of salmon berry fecal matter being expressed from the creature in our general direction. Bears know how to eliminate waste with style!

Another brown bear feature is their immense power. There was once a black bear carcass hanging in the camp's tire shop. This particular building was sided with 2X10 inch wood planks. Two grizzlies were apparently craving a little bear sausage for an amuse bouche , for they ran through one wall of the shop, grabbed the hanging black bear, and busted through the opposite wall as an exit. I know that bears are intelligent, but maybe these two were drunk on fermented salmon berries as the tire shop garage door was open. Or maybe they just wanted to show us just how high atop the food chain they were through their massive and sort of creepy show of strength and dinner choice. Who knows?

My own encounters with brown bears are a touch more comical in nature. One time I was leaning out the front of a trailer window spraying spiders with hairspray. As we were extremely bored teenagers in the wilderness, that particular bit of moronic behavior seemed totally rational at the time. A mother grizzly picked that moment to pop her head up to the window, and I might have sprayed hairspray in her general direction as I let out a terrified yelp in surprise.

That particular sow bear had two cubs the size of large black bears. As we played outside on our trampoline and basketball court we were observed by this family, for as we retreated into the relative safety of our shabby single-wide abodes, the bears would come out and try to jump on the trampoline. The "kids" would place their two front feet onto the mat and push it up and down as hard as they could. It was pretty cute! Well, maybe not so cute for the trampoline springs to endure, but that thing took a beating on a daily basis, so it handled the bear's assault without too much groaning.

What wasn't cute was their attempt at basketball. They popped most of our basketballs, and it wasn't easy to replace basketballs when you lived in the wilderness. Of course we were few cards shy of a full deck for leaving the basketballs out there in the first place, but honestly, who would think that a wild bear would ascribe to be Michael Jordan!!

Does not pop basketballs when she plays, unlike brown bear cubs.

Somewhere in the treasure trove that is my mom's photographic archive is a picture of my brother that I will always treasure. If I can procure a copy I will gladly post it. It was Easter Sunday, and our family was out for a drive. There was about a foot of fresh snow and the picture shows my little brother, whom was around twelve at the time, standing next to a Brown bear track. This particular track measured fourteen inches long by nine and a half inches wide. The creator of said footprint was right underneath the bridge that my brother is standing on, and my dad was beside himself with mirth due to my brother's pants wetting state of mind. It didn't help that we could see the steam rising off of that massive creature rising above the logs that bridge was composed of.

His fear of the beast wasn't misplaced, as we had witnessed the sheer power that brown bears had at their disposal just a few weeks previous. The maintenance man had a Boxer dog named Booger. To say that the creature was a half a bubble off of level might be giving it too much credit. In fact, I am pretty sure that Booger was either the bravest or stupidest creature alive. Perhaps a bit of both. He was just copying his owner. Booger thought that he would challenge Mama Griz to a duel. It was like animal kingdom Fight Club, and it was a total TKO in the first round. Mama Griz slapped that Boxer at good thirty feet, and for a gangly dog, Booger could roll. The most shocking bit of the exhibition is when the spectator, the maintenance guy, ran at Mama Griz screaming: "Don't you hurt my dog." It is my belief that the reason the man still draws air into his lungs is out of Mama Griz's affinity towards us camp children for sharing our toys with her spawn. Mom's like it when kids share.

This breed of canine is simultaneously the bravest and the most lacking in the intelligence department.

All said, I am glad that I got to experience a couple years of my life in close proximity with the giant beasts. I learned a lot about animal behavior from observing and interacting with the bears, and I belief it further fostered a healthy respect for all animals both domestic and wild. I've always loved the creatures that we dwell with on this earth, but it was through seeing and experiencing their behavior in a truly wild setting that I began to appreciate and understand just how amazing the inhabitants of nature truly are!

And as always, unless otherwise noted, all of the images in this post were taken by the author on her trusty and non bear-gnawed on (unlike her parent's freezer) iPhone.