Anchorage Daily News

HAINES -- I know that you should never surprise a bear. What I don't know is if I did the right thing when a bear surprised me. I am pretty sure, though, that when a bear is close enough to your daughter to splash her, you would also wish your can of pepper spray were a hand grenade.

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Saturday afternoon, I was standing thigh-deep in my chest waders in the rolling, rocky Chilkoot River, doing my best to cast a fly without hooking another fisherman, a clump of grass or my 17-year-old daughter, who was fishing behind me closer to the riverbank.

A tall eighth-grader, also in waders, was giving his smaller, booted friend a piggyback ride to a gravel bar nearby.

My husband and the taller boy's dad fished about the same distance away, in the opposite direction. Just about every shallow bench, rock and grassy island had a casting fisherman. More waded or stood on the narrow bank between the river and Chilkoot Lake State Park Road, which was lined with parked vehicles and a few slow-moving RVs.

Kayakers in colorful plastic boats practiced in the rapids. A Fish and Game biologist counted the salmon slipping through the hole in the weir that cuts the river in half like a picket fence. I could hear his rock music on the breeze. There were patches of blue sky. The two miles or so of this idyllic river adjacent to the road that winds from the beach to the lake campground are beautiful and well-used. It is also a popular bear-viewing area for tourists at dusk and dawn.

Which may be why, when the long-legged, rangy brown bear loped down the bank, no one gave a warning shout or honked a horn. They wanted to see it.

When the bear walked around a boulder with a foreign couple sitting on top, the woman whispered down to my daughter, "Bear."

My daughter was startled to see a real live bear standing as close to her as a good dog should. She plunged into the river and pushed steadily against the current toward me, with the bear following at an easy walk.

I saw her and the bear and instinctively backed up, moving as fast as I wanted her to go. When I realized what I was doing, I moved toward her, reaching for her with one hand and grabbing my pepper spray with the other. I brought it over everyone's objections. (It's daytime, there are too many people, it's a park, they'd close it if it wasn't safe.)

My daughter said, "Mom, help," softly, so the bear wouldn't hear her and then maybe not see her, and please, dear God, not kill her. I looked at the bear, swinging its head from side to side, and grabbed my daughter's hand.

Once we reached firm footing in shallower water, the bear stood and looked around. My heart jackhammered. My knees shook. My hands tingled. He took slow steps our way. Why wasn't he leaving? It was surreal. Even in my worst-case-scenario dreams, I hadn't imagined so public a mauling.

Fishermen watched from the river. Tourists watched from the bank like the gallery at a golf tournament. A bus pulled into the last gap on the road and everyone climbed out with scopes on tripods.

What we had, as the KHNS "Safety Talk" guys say on their local radio show, was "a situation." We were in the middle of a river too deep to cross. In between us and the safety of our truck was a bold brown bear, and the only escape route for the bear and us was blocked by gawkers who didn't know enough about bears to be afraid of them. Also, there were dozens of fishermen who could be in our waders next.

We moved sideways holding hands, but the bear shadowed us. This is when I wished the bear spray were a hand grenade.

My daughter and the piggyback boys, who were closer now, just across a channel from us, looked at me like I knew what I was doing. So I pretended I did and mouthed "Everything's fine." Then my husband caught up to us and said stay together, three people are better than two. The bear apparently knew this rule and turned away from our trio, then moved closer to the boys. My husband said "Be careful" and took the bear spray and waded out to help them, with the other dad in his wake.

That's when my daughter and I dashed to shore and up to the truck. Seconds later the men and boys arrived, wide-eyed and breathless. "That was something" was all my husband could say. The bear continued to taunt fishermen and amuse the gallery.

My husband said later, "It's just a matter of time before someone's killed," which is the same thing everyone here says.

No doubt when that happens, everyone will also say "I told you so," which will be no comfort at all, to anyone.

Heather Lende lives in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.

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