We Alaskans

Bear keeps us humble, looking (nervously) up the food chain

 

TENAKEE SPRINGS — Around here, bears are a fact of life. No matter where you go in Alaska, urban or Bush, city or suburb, it is impossible to live here without some level of Bear awareness. The weekend jogger huffing along a familiar trail feels a certain heightened level of watchfulness. No casual fall berry-picker is completely free of that small, back-of-the-mind knowledge that Bear might be behind the next bush. The suburban homeowner taking out the trash on a dark night looks over his shoulder in the sure knowledge that out there somewhere, perhaps close, Bear is there. Bear's presence permeates our lives, and nowhere more so than in Bush Alaska.

Where I live, not only do we know that Bear is there, we know that he outnumbers us. At last count, there were about 1,300 humans on Chichagof Island and about 1,500 bears — more of them than us. It's OK, though. Mostly we get along without ever crossing paths. Bear is a solitary fellow who roams widely in search of food while we humans tend to stay clumped up in our villages. Also, from what little we know, we don't taste very good and we're pretty sure that we smell bad. For whatever reasons, Bear almost never comes looking for us. About the only time we get into trouble with Bear is when we intrude into his notoriously unpredictable personal space or when we blunder between a sow and her cubs.

About the only thing that regularly upsets this uneasy peace is our garbage, which makes complete sense if we think about it. In our highly evolved state, being civilized and all, we can eat pretty much whenever we're hungry and can take our own sweet time about it, should we choose. Bear's relationship with his food is fundamentally different. Consider first the simple fact of his size. It takes an enormous volume of fuel to keep that lumbering biological machine going and, unlike us, Bear has only a few short months to pack on enough weight to get him through those long dark winters. Few creatures of his size need to eat so much in so short a time. In Bear's world, it's all about food.

Carrot Bear

The Bear who occasionally comes nosing around our Bush community is almost always a youngster. Usually, he has just been booted into emancipation by mom and many of life's lessons are yet to be learned. Just like our own teenagers, he is clumsy and unsure of himself. If it's early in the season and he is simply curious, the town dogs will run him off without much trouble — kind of like shooing the teenager away from the refrigerator. Later in autumn, it will be different. Bear who comes around then is still a teenager and still a long way from having his grown-up act together. Now, though, he is seriously hungry and, deep in his bones, knows that winter is coming on. He hasn't the bulk or the bravery to stand up to the bigger bruins working the river for those last fat salmon and neither hunger nor desperation seldom change any situation for the better.

A couple years ago, on the edge of town, a young Bear discovered a family garden patch with a particularly good stand of carrots. Over a period of a few weeks he became known as the Carrot Bear, returning every few nights to root through the garden eating only the carrots but, in the process, doing massive "collateral damage" to the rest of the garden. No amount of yelling or banging did any good, and the deer fence was no more than a hollow symbol. Even a shotgun blast that peppered him with dirt and rocks proved a minor annoyance. A couple of good dogs would have solved the problem but these folks didn't keep dogs. Clearly, this young guy was simply not going to grow up to be an old Bear.

Last fall, an older Bear was cruising the hillside behind our village. The town dogs had been giving him the full-on treatment, circling, yapping and biting, but this big guy only got progressively bolder. He savaged a shed where his nose told him that a deer was hanging. He couldn't get inside but, in his frustration and rage, he clawed and chewed the wooden steps to splinters. He wouldn't take hints, either, so the handwriting was on the wall. As it turned out, he was a very old Bear with broken and missing teeth and claws — desperately skinny at a time of year when he should have been fat. Some saw the desperation of a hungry, broke-down old Bear. The more poetic of us considered it a case of Bear suicide by hunter.

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Sometimes, though, encounters with Bear just make for good stories. Like this:

Trudging up the schoolhouse stairs one day, a kindergartner looked up straight into the face of Bear looking down on her from the top landing. A Bush kid from birth, mom's frequent Bear lectures came back in a flash. She froze, just like mom had said to do. She knew she shouldn't run or scream. Remembering, she began to slowly back down the steps. She quietly backed all the way down those long stairs, even though Bear was no longer in sight, and turned and kept backing up until she was almost home. A block away, her mom looked up from gardening and wondered why her small daughter was coming home from school early, backward.

Bad idea

Years ago, the U.S. Forest Service bought into the timber company's idea that Bear was bad for business and for quite a few years had a bear-eradication program on Admiralty Island. They were good at it and didn't fool around. They might very well have succeeded in killing every Bear on the island if, in the meantime, we hadn't all learned better. Good thing, too. We need Bear.

Life in our little Bush communities isn't nearly as hard as it used to be. We have our solid houses with freezers on the back porch. We have our internet (usually) and our mail (in good weather) and our twice-a-week ferry (always). Even getting fresh fruit and vegetables is only a little more challenging than it is for city folks. Those who have gone before might well judge us as wimps — and it might be true if not for Bear.

We need Bear. He keeps us on our toes, lest we lose sight of our rightful place in the grand scheme of things. City or Bush, our wonderful success in solving, subduing and managing the old challenges has left us in grave danger of losing our perspective. It's good for us to live with constant mild Bear awareness. Looked at one way, there is even a certain equality in it. Safe in the security of our homes at night, it is good for us to be reminded that we are not the top of the food chain. Somewhere, perhaps close, Bear is there. Bear is good for us. He keeps us humble.

Brooke Elgie is a freelance writer based in Tenakee Springs. Reach him at brookeelgie@gmail.com.

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