Life in a Nutshell

I'm Thankful for Bears in Faraway Places

"Hey..." My dad's voice was soft and quiet, unusual for him.

He was walking in front of me through the Alaskan Muskeg while I followed carefully in his footsteps. I didn't want to step wrong and disappear into the boggy water that lurked beneath us. We were beach combing and exploring his neighborhood.

I looked up and saw that he had stopped short a few paces in front of me and was gazing to the left.

His rain gear squelched in the wet afternoon, as he pointed toward the tree line.

"There's a bear right there," he said in a hushed tone.

I followed his line of sight through the coastal drizzle and saw a massive brown bear about twenty yards away staring at us from inside the trees.

Zeke, Dad's dog was standing at attention, his back bristled. He was a huge Rottweiler Shepherd mix that had been a guard dog at a local gravel pit in Sitka. The guys would play fetch with him with rocks, and he'd broken all his canine teeth chewing on those massive stones. The owner realized he wouldn't be very good at attacking criminals coming to steal tools or equipment, so he was given to Dad as a gift and for an intruder alarm out here in the bush. Zeke was incredible. He was such a good dog. A protector who loved my father with a fierce passion.

Dad made sure that Zekey's playthings were sacrificial stuffed animals now, not rocks, and Zeke would disembowel a stuffy per day if they let him.

"GIT, BEAR!" Dad yelled toward the massive lumbering mountain of brown fur that was slowly moving toward us. I was frozen. Standing on unsteady waterlogged ground in cumbersome rain gear and big brown Xtra-tuff boots. I knew I'd be easy pickings for a hungry bear.

Zeke growled menacingly and stepped forward, while Dad cocked his 30/30 and braced it on his upper leg, pointing to the sky.

The bear didn't stop.

So, Dad pulled the trigger and shot in the air. The loud boom made me wince, while Zeke went crazy barking and howling, but Dad held him securely by the collar.

The bear halted and swayed his big head back and forth at us. Debating whether or not his mid-afternoon snack was worth the effort. Then it slowly turned and walked away. Dad shot in the air again and the bear took off running.

We just stood there silently breathing for about a minute afterward, catching our breath, and letting our hearts slow down.

"Gottdamn! I sure am glad I didn't have to skin a bear today." Dad laughed his great big laugh, and we walked on through the Alaskan wilderness of Admiralty Island. The place he called home.

In 2002, Dad invited me up from Oregon to visit him in Southeast Alaska at the place he and his wife had landed after he retired from ranching, and a short stint with a helicopter logging crew in Chelan, Washington.

He was sixty-two, and still rugged and healthy enough to live in the Alaskan bush caretaking a fly-in-only lodge over the long cold winters.

After a year of subsistence living in the wilderness he qualified for the Alaskan equivalent of a "Get out of jail free card." He was considered an Alaskan Pioneer, and granted hunting and fishing rights year-round on anything he would use to survive, except federally protected animals, like seal, eagle and grizzly bears.

We didn't have the funds for both of us to go, so my husband encouraged me to take two weeks and visit, buying my fare from Medford to Sitka, where I then would take a charter to Admiralty Island for my two-week stay in the bush.

It was January, terrible weather, but inexpensive flights. The money always won, so I booked in winter.

When I got to town, the charter company picked me up at the airport and had me help haul two months' worth of groceries and mail on the little pontoon Cessna that would fly me and all their supplies out to the island.