On Friday we drove up to the cabin again to spend the 4th July holiday weekend there. It was a nice, warm evening on Friday, and on Saturday morning I woke up to another reasonably hot day in the Alaskan wilderness. Relaxing a while before breakfast, Fran and I sat on the porch looking at the view of the lake, and Jack stood a few yards away beside the car, looking out with a pair of binoculars, at the Loons on the lake (a Loon is a type of duck here).
I turned to look at him, wondering if he had seen anything interesting through the binoculars. It turns out something incredibly interesting was actually right beside the car to his left, apparently in my blind spot - yet at first I thought it was a joke when Fran said calmly "Jack, there's a bear beside you". I turned to look at Jack's reaction to this joke when I noticed that he was edging slowly to the passenger side of the car, and only then I noticed that there was a black bear standing right beside the driver's side! Ever the photographer at times like these, I grabbed my camera.
As you can just about see from that first photo, it was a reasonably small bear, probably around 1 or 2 years old. This age is the most dangerous - if it was 1, it would be under the protection of its incredibly dangerous mother, but if it was 2 - it would already have been thrown out by its mother. In that case, it would be at an age where it does not know the rules of the forest (leave humans alone unless attacked, etc.).
Jack got into the car for safety and Fran & I moved into the cabin and watched from the window. It approached the cabin, and started to walk around the perimeter. It sniffed around at the dead campfire...
And then at the deck (where all of our food was, and where we had just been sitting).
After this, it disappeared around the corner of the house, so I ran to the window on that side to watch his next movements. I couldn't see him. We looked out of all the windows, and he wasn't there. Jack had got out of the car and he was trying to tell us something. So Fran opened the door of the cabin, and at this point we realised he was right on the deck all along! The noise of the door opening took him by surprise, and he charged away from the door, leaped off the deck, and charged straight towards my uncle!
Jack was prepared, however, with a can of bear spray he found in the car, which he promptly unloaded right into the bear's face. The bear backed away but didn't leave! The bear spray defended Jack, but overall it did not deter the bear from their property.
I went back inside the cabin and the bear walked straight past the window I was at. He stopped right in front of the window - which was open. There was only a mosquito shield between me, and the bear. It looked straight up at me, made eye contact, and I took his photo:
I must say, its a very flattering photo. You'd never guess he had the potential to turn into a brutal attacker at any moment. So small (for a bear), so cute, so dozy. But don't be fooled, these bears plod around slowly but can run at 40mph if they want to. My most daring photojournalism yet ;-)
Fran came out of the cabin again, and she too unleashed a load of bear spray in an attempt to scare him away from us (high strength pepper spray, effective against bear attacks 82% of the time). I went over towards the car for a better view, where Jack had previously confronted the bear. Bad idea. The pepper spray was still lingering in the air, and I got more than one lungful of it. Nowhere near full strength or impact, it still hit me like flames in my throat. I convulsed with coughing and made my way into the car. Even though I was now breathing clean air, the pepper spray wouldn't leave my lungs and I grappled in the back seat of the car for some water. There were bottles in there, but they were all empty. I found a purple drinking flask which sloshed when I kicked it, so I opened it and drank the lot - I didn't care whose it was or what germs they might have. It helped, but I was still coughing periodically for the rest of the day.
Meanwhile, the bear was still mooching around curiously.
In the end, he plodded off. Yes, he definitely mooched off, not ran. Totally relaxed, not put off at all by the faceful of full strength pepper spray he'd just recieved. We knew he'd be back - and surely enough he returned less than 20 minutes later. Another circle of the cabin, another sniff around, and he left, slowly at first, but then ran when he heard our footsteps. This reassured us slightly; maybe he was finally coming to his senses and deciding to associate humans with danger! However, Jack still suggested we didn't stay at the cabin a second night. Being a Vietnam war veteran, I'd say Jack is pretty savvy when it comes to danger and defence. He has incredible sight and hearing (especially for a man in his 60s) and he really does have good judgement. But Fran insisted we didn't "let the bear win" and was determined we'd stay. I kind of enjoyed the excitement and I was having a good weekend, so in truth, I was glad to hear her say that.
After a while with no bear appearences, Jack and I went canoeing in their lake. It was fun and relaxing! Here are some pictures:
So after a while, we landed back at the edge of the lake, and Fran came down from the cabin to help us out of the canoe. We went back up to the cabin, all of us still had bears on the brain so I was looking out for it as I walked back up. And there it bloody well was, again! It then must have done roughly the same routine as before at least two or three more times. Here is another good picture I took of it (sorry, you can probably tell I'm pretty proud of these!):
In the end it mooched off again and went into the bushes beside the driveway. I watched the bushes a while, but lost interest, while Jack was still watching the bushes constantly. No movement for a while, when suddenly the bear came running out from the other side of the driveway to which it had originally disappeared. Now, Jack had his eye on it the whole time so it couldn't have switched sides. Throughout the day of bear appearences, Fran and Jack had also been questioning whether the bear was the same size each time. On reflection, we don't think it was.
One explanation is that the bear we saw at first was a young bear cub, and the larger bear we saw further from a distance was his mom, looking for him. Upon finally finding him on the other side of the drive, she ran towards him happily. It would make sense, since the whole time the bear seemed unusually disinterested in the food we had lying around - yet still wandered around curiously. He must have got separated from her when we unknowingly disturbed them by approaching in the car, and they then spent the day searching for eachother. That's the only explanation we could think of.
Anyway, after that, we thankfully didn't see the bear again. The whole think was very exctiting. I got closer to a bear than most Alaskan's would hope to or want to! And I got some very good pictures too! I even took two videos! I tried uploading one to Youtube but I'll have to wait until I get a stronger internet connection because it takes so long.
I hope I haven't bored you with this long post. If bear stories don't interest you, at least the pictures might have.
In other news, I'm really missing home this evening! I just listened to A Day In the Life by the Beatles and it reminded me of being dozy, happy and tipsy with friends. I sometimes moan about their repetitive "Beatles nights" but now I think about it they're some of the best nights I've enjoyed in my life! I miss my friends, I feel like I haven't appreciated them enough in the past year. But I guess we were all so bent on exams... I miss my dogs. It's nice having the company of Scrapper the cat, but you can't get the same joy you get from pouncing on a hyperactive, smelly Springer spaniel for a tickle. Also, I feel stupid and judged if I sing or talk nonsense at a cat. Scrapper just gives me a droll look if I pounce on her and say "oodgy boodgy woodgy hoodgy kitty!" In fact, I just miss being at home and being with the people, pets, and food I'm used to!
Don't get me wrong, I'm having a fantastic time. I just feel I'm going to be missing all of these things a lot more in the coming weeks!
Eh, I guess it's just tea withdrawl!
Eh, I guess it's just tea withdrawl!
(P.S. This is me beside the cabin)
3 comments:
Great bear pics you intrepid explorer of the Wild you!
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