Body Bag Bears

         

by 

Jerry Dale McDonnell©2014

Published in MungBeing #56 2014

      The ceiling was low; the Cessna 170 was bucking like a bull with a money rider on its back. Steve, the pilot, swooped low one time over the slanted beach tilting toward a wind stirred water that slapped waves onto the narrow edge of Cook Inlet. Satisfied that driftwood wasn’t an issue on the sand runway that existed only by the grace of a low tide, Steve swung around to make a landing.  On the turn I counted two brown bears in the sedge clearing about one-quarter mile from the beach. The aircraft touched down a bit hard due to a sudden gust of wind off the port wing, which set us down close to wild water. I was glad Steve was the pilot or else we might have gone surfing encompassed in this metal box designed for flight not float. It was a good landing on a bad day. I was home for the season.

        I usually don’t have bad days in the bush, but some days moods can change faster than the weather. For a long time now I haven’t let bad days bother me. One day, years ago, when I was in the Navy scraping the pieces of a pilot friend of mine off the runway into a body bag, an old Petty Officer named Griff told me that when I got out all I would remember were the good times. When a bad day shows up, I think of Griff and what he said. It helps. Griff was an old drunk, but he did his job and he was one of the best mechanics we had in our squadron of AD 4’s and 5’s—the last breed of the single-engine, prop, fighter planes. I could have gone into jets back then, and I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe it was because those last-breed military fighter prop driven aircraft were so tough. They could carry their own weight in payload and fly slow enough to be more efficient when supporting the troops on the ground. Not that I ever saw that. I was an enlisted man in the Naval Air. We fine tuned the planes and put ‘em in the air. When they got back we patched ‘em up and sent ‘em out again. I loved to fly, but I rarely got the opportunity to leave the ground. Yes sir, those old AD’s were tough. But they put them into extinction like a stuffed animal in a hotel lobby.

Since I’ve lived in Alaska, I have flown more than I ever did in the Naval Air. Weather and visibility permitting, we get in and out places in this country by flying in small planes that usually only seat four, plus gear. To this lodge it’s a 50-mile boat ride across the Cook Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula, a trip that can be pleasant or iffy, be it by air or sea. When you set foot on the beach here you are as likely to be greeted by a brown bear as a human. Here on the eastern edge of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve there are bears aplenty and people only seasonally. The bears are the Chairmen of the Board on this chunk of the planet.

I have never strived to shake hands with a bear or sit down to dinner with one, but I do enjoy being in their company. I don’t know much about this anthropomorphism stuff, but it seems akin to manifest destiny, the latter being a theory of which I have an issue. I’m a simple man. There is this planet and there are creatures and growing things on it. I just do my chores and take life one day at a time. Most of the time, quiet is best.

As the season progressed into August the silver salmon were running heavy up the creek on the high tides and now there were too many people. In modern day Alaska that means a migration of humans. They come in small aircraft and swarm the beach and creek like sand flies. I can’t stand it. So today I convinced a couple from Idaho staying at the lodge that I could show them a more pristine place sans people.

A few miles north of the lodge is a river I deny to name that is difficult to access. You can’t land close to it. You can’t take a boat up it for more than a few hundred yards and the further you get up the river the more difficult the going gets. The brush is thick; you have to walk in the small river most of the time, not a recommended practice in downtown bear country.

“Are there bears up there?” the lady asked.

“Yes mam, plenty of bears. The biggest ones,” I answered.

“Isn’t that dangerous?

“There is always a danger around bears, but not as bad as you read about.”

The husband was still on the fence about the whole idea. “How far is it?” he asked.

“It’ll take most of the day, but I think you’ll like it,” I said. I could tell he had been unhappy with the amount of people that had invaded our territory the past two days with the good weather and the salmon run. Most of the time we are remote. When the planes can’t fly and before the salmon begin their run and later in the fall, we have the place to ourselves. It got worse this year when one of the native corporations decided to run a tent camp a couple of miles south up the beach. They were sweetheartin’ deep pocket CEO’s and politicians. They had an agenda, the might and maybe border line right. The owner of the lodge was not happy. Salmon were plentiful, but the creek was small. We wanted to have a limit of one salmon a day. This year the Fish and Game had allowed three a day, and it was obvious that many people who flew in for the day in small private aircraft were openly abusing that law. The corporation tent camp people weren’t much better. But what are you going to do? The law doesn’t come here often. We had to get along with everybody. It was a National Park and Preserve, Alaskan style; motors took precedent over shank’s mare. We had a decent lodge building with full kitchen, outbuildings, and a halibut charter boat. We were private and we weren’t cheap. But I always thought we had some class. We did things right. We gave bears first rights. It was their land. Like I said, we didn’t try to shake their paw or cause them due stress, but the guests at the lodge could sit out on the second story deck in the morning and evening and quite often see quite a bear show, sometimes right beneath the deck, and we had places to take people where bear watching was primo. Oh, we gave the bears their distance and sometimes had to scare them off, but I sure as heck didn’t want to have to shoot one of them.

The couple from Idaho decided to take a chance on me and let me walk them up the river. No, I won’t tell the name of the river. Like I said, quiet is best. I got permission to take a three-wheeler and a trailer three miles up the shoreline. From there you have to walk. Crossing a creek at low tide, we still had to walk a pace to access a side channel of the river.

Far away from the airplanes and the plethora of people, Alaska returned. We had a valley opening up to the Inlet all to ourselves. The wind at our back, a small brown bear stood on its hind legs a couple of hundred yards to our left to get our scent. A Bald Eagle watched us from a treetop. I pointed to a falcon sitting atop a small spruce tree. A warm breeze danced down the canyon. I took my hat off, closed my eyes and turned my face into the sun. The gentle noise of the land set in, and the couple stopped asking questions. You could see the contentment on their faces. I knew I had chosen the right pair to take this journey. It was not more than a mile walk before we reached the side channel of the river. We caught a few salmon, released them and moved on. A couple of miles later we reached the main branch of the river and found seals in the first hole. While the couple fished, I spent the time looking for bear beds and tracks close to the water’s edge. I didn’t tell them about the huge bear track I saw.

“Do you want to go further?” I asked after we finished our sandwiches.

“What’s ahead?” he asked. “Looks like the canyon narrows up ahead.”

“That’s right, but a bit further there are some nice holes and some runs where you could catch some dolly varden feeding on the salmon eggs.” Truth be told we could catch the same down below, but I always want to go further.

Less than a mile up river, the canyon narrowed and thick brush closed in tight. Wearing our chest waders, we had to walk in the river. This could have been the best day of the season. A couple miles up, we got lucky. Coming around a bend, more than fifty yards ahead on a sandbank of the main channel of the river, we saw Hershey. He was fishing and had already eaten several salmon, biting the backs out of them and throwing the rest on the bank. As the wind was in our faces, he didn’t see us at first, which was not good. Hershey was the alpha brown bear of the region, but he was coal-black. That’s why we named him Hershey. I had estimated (the easiest way to weigh a bear is without a scale) his weight at close 1,000 pounds. On his hind legs he was definitely NBA material. When he saw us, he went up on his hind legs, sniffing the air and quickly began to circle.

“What’s he doing?” the man asked.

“Trying to get our scent. Stay put,” I whispered.

“Shouldn’t we get out of here,” he whispered.

“I prefer not to have him follow us to get our scent,” I said and levered a round in the chamber of my 350 Remington Magnum rifle to assure the couple I was prepared. In all my years of guiding bear viewers, I had never yet had to shoot a bear. It was a record I wished to maintain. My karma demanded it. “If we let him wind us, chances are his curiosity will be satisfied and he will go back to his salmon dinner. Stay close to me and do what I say. Get your camera ready.” Hershey disappeared into the bush. We could see the brush moving as he circled. He came out of the bush about 40 yards downstream from us. Standing on his hind legs again, nose sniffing in the air, paws as big as a catcher’s mitt held up like he was about to reach out and gently touch something. He was impressive. He must have been over 10 feet tall. “Stand side by side, one on each side of me. I’ll do the negotiating. Don’t yell or make loud noises . . . that may be aggressive at this distance. If he charges, stand your ground.” Then Hershey did the thing I didn’t want him to do. He started walking toward us real slow. I hate that. I prefer the charge with head and ears up because that’s usually a bluff. It is ears and head down and teeth snapping that you definitely don’t want to see from a charging brown bear. But this slow walk toward you is the scariest of all.

“What do we do,” the lady whispered.  The fear in her voice was obvious.

“Got your camera ready?”  I said, because I really didn’t know what to do. In this situation it can go several ways. At this point, if this was a smaller brown bear, I would have us all just clap our hands. In my experience that usually works better than shooting guns in the air. But with Hershey, the alpha bear, could that be an aggressive move that would spawn an attack?  I had been admiring Hershey for several years. He came near the lodge sometimes in the late evening, keeping his distance, skirting the trees at more than a thousand yards from the lodge. When Hershey took his evening stroll, all the other bears split. But right now we were in his path and he appeared to be going back to the hole from where he was fishing and had decided not to take the bush detour but to come right through us. We were on the elephant walk so to speak. “Walk backwards with me slowly. Stay close,” I said. Ten yards in back of us on the bank of the river was a fallen tree trunk about 30 feet long lying 20 feet or more from the edge of the river below a cutbank. Hershey kept coming; I maneuvered us very slowly to the log, and kept talking gently, trying not to make eye contact. “We’re just passing through old man. Don’t mean any harm. Don’t make eye contact with him.” 

Hearts pounding, the back of our legs touched the log, and I sat down. The couple sat down with me in perfect pitch and there we sat like the three stooges. Hershey regally walked by us not more than 25 yards away like the king he was. He was close enough that we could smell him; it was the odor of carcasses, rotting carcasses. He opened his jaw slightly like he was about to sample an appetizer, which gave us an excellent show of his large teeth. Visions of teeth taking a bite out of you and the odor of giant salmon-eating bear were easy to come by. Even beneath his thick, black fur coat his huge muscles seemed evident by his steady stride, his fat reserve rolling back and forth over his body comfortably. Nary a glance our way did he give as he waded up the river. He ignored us like exiled subjects. We could have been a rock. The lady sitting close to me on the log squeezed my leg so hard that I had a bruise for a day or so. The bear didn’t even turn a glance at the soft sound of the shutter of the man’s camera, which startled me. I had forgotten to tell him not to do that at this close range. But fortunately Hershey ignored it. After he winded us, maybe he figured we weren’t worth the bother. Hershey disappeared upstream around a bend; I took the round out of the chamber of the rifle. Eight paces took me from where we were sitting to where Hershey passed. My heart was still racing a bit. Silently, we measured his track in the mud: more than 12 inches across. The man took some pictures of it with my skinning knife beside it for perspective. No one spoke for the first few miles as we walked down the river. The lady paid close attention to the bush along the riverbank. Finally she said, “How did you know he would walk by?” 

“Experience,” I lied. “We call him Hershey.”  Inside I was elated. I had never been so close to Hershey and odds are no one else had either. I had always thought a thousand yards was as close as I ever wanted to be next to Hershey. Today Hershey granted us leave. I sure didn’t want to shoot him, and at that distance the outcome would have more than likely to come out in Hershey’s favor anyway. At 20 yards a little piece of lead thrown in haste probably wouldn’t have hit a vital spot. I’d like to think there was no hard feeling between us. Maybe I didn’t have any business there. I have a great admiration for Hershey, but I’ve never wanted to rub shoulders. He’s tough like those AD fighter planes we had in the Navy. He belongs here alive and when he dies he will still belong here; he’s not a hotel lobby decoration. Hershey is the alpha bear and I’m just a simple man, an ordinary man. So far it was a great day.

Back at the lodge the couple decided to have a cocktail before dinner. But a day’s work is never done for guides. The lodge got a call on the hand radio that a bear was harassing our self-guided clients who were fishing in the main hole. I was volunteered; I jumped on a four-wheeler and was there in five minutes.

The situation was chaos. The bear had nowhere to go; it was in the creek trapped on all sides by fishermen. Upstream were four of our lodge’s clients. I called to them to pull their lines out quick and come toward me on the bank. I recognized the animal, Little Bear we called her. I waded into the creek heading toward her, calling to fishermen on the both banks to back off. Just then, a man started shooting his rifle into the air. Little Bear, not knowing which way to go was highly agitated and started spinning in the creek like a steer cornered by a cutting horse. Know this bear or not, I suddenly realized I had just done a foolish thing. It was a bear, a wild bear, no matter how well I thought I knew this one. Only 20 yards separated us. I stood my ground in the creek, unarmed. I began talking quietly to Little Bear. Downstream fishermen were shouting. On each bank fishermen were backing off, but a couple of them had rifles at the ready. Upstream was now clear since our lodge clients had gotten out of the water, which gave Little Bear an escape route. Little Bear, likely three or four years old, the first summer without her mother, was usually quite docile, but now she was stressing; she didn’t know what to do. One day past I had fished with Little Bear. We walked up the creek together for several miles one evening, she chasing salmon toward my fly rod and me chasing salmon back to her. But bears are like adolescents, calm one minute and the next moment any little thing might ignite a hormone crisis.

Seeing the space open upstream, she began to calm down. I could tell she had seen the escape route. I waved silently for the people on the shore to put down their weapons and back off. Little Bear moved upstream, head turning this way and that, still a bit nervous, but it was obvious that she was leaving. I was still watching her when the gunshot exploded and Little Bear ran upstream making a mournful sound that cried pages of pain and death and sorrow. When the second shot hit her, Little Bear turned and ran toward it. A man standing on the high bank lowered his rifle when Little Bear dropped dead on the bank in mid-stride.

It had been a late August cool evening of the day Little Bear and I fished together. It wasn’t a plan. I was alone walking upstream with my fly rod when Little Bear rose from the grass and came into the creek with me like we had an appointment. It was a time of the year when the sun at this latitude doesn’t set until late and holds light till shy of midnight. A few wisps of streaked clouds drifted overhead. The creek cut three foot-high banks through flat, sparsely timbered meadows where the tall, brown grass gently swayed in a slight breeze like it was listening to a jazz tune. A pair of trumpeter swans circled over us. In bear fashion, Little Bear and I didn’t look at each other. I have no idea what she was thinking, but I fantasized how she had joined me like a neighborhood dog and that we were friends out for an evening stroll up the creek. It just seemed natural. I was honored. At the headwaters of the creek, shallow meandering rivulets run out of a marsh. The marsh feeds a deep terminus pool where the salmon congregate like a crowd waiting to get into a concert. Steep eight-foot banks line the pool on two sides and at the upper end there is a small beach. Downstream of the pool, Little Bear climbed up the steep bank on one side and I climbed out on the other. On the small beach on the upstream side, four clients from our lodge and one of our guides were fishing. They saw us arrive together as a congenial couple. From her high bank, Little Bear looked down into the pool, saw the deep mass of fish, dove head first into the pool and came up with a salmon, which she took back up to the top of the bank and ate. Sitting on her hindquarters, she then grabbed her back paws with her front and rocked a bit before scratching. Cameras were clicking from the upper end of the pool.

I held back tears when I had to skin out Little Bear and put her body in bags. The account was emotional: filled with bravado from the man who had shot the bear, disgust by some, thanks from others. The story was writing a new version with each person’s telling. Opinionated observations were flying like a session in congress. Some fly-in fishermen had left a cooler with lunches on the far side of the creek and the bear had raided it. Others said freshly caught salmon had been left on the bank instead of being kept out of sight in the water on a stringer. And that’s about the gist of it. I visualized steam coming out of my ears like in the funny papers. I know I didn’t go to the beach and tear the wings off of small aircraft or set fire to the corporation tent camp, but I played out those scenes in my mind. I did go call the authorities and let them know one of our citizens had been murdered without just cause. After all, we have to get along with our neighbors.

I named the spot from where Little Bear took her dive, Little Bear’s Last Supper. I often look at the pictures I took of Little Bear that year when she and I were fishing together. I’m still running that reel in my mind after all these years; it’s in color: the grass is still swaying, the trumpeter swans are still circling, Little Bear is still chasing salmon beside me, Hershey is shaking his head as he disappears into the bush and Griff was mostly right.

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