As a bonus post today, here is a new article of mine that will be published in the Glacier Park Foundation's The Inside Trail magazine in February or March 2014.
****
THE WEST GLACIER BLACK BEAR: AN UNUSUAL FRIENDSHIP
When I came to Glacier National
Park to work seasonally in the summer of 2012, I was already something of a
self-taught bear expert. I had read dozens of books on the subject and even
worked with captive grizzlies in Alaska, so I reacted with less dread than some
of my colleagues at the news that a 400 pound black bear had taken up residence
in town two years prior and was especially enjoying the cornucopia of
huckleberries and dandelions that were growing around the employee cabins where
I would be living. “He’s a sweet bear,” I had been assured by some who had
already been face to face with him on more than one occasion.
Despite all the stories I had
been told, the bear – who had been described to me as “enormous” – remained
elusive. I can recall lying in the bed at night and listening to a large animal
moving around outside, snapping sticks as he foraged. Then one evening, while
watching a movie in the dark, the bright flickering light of the screen on the
window drew him to the cabin and he stood up, placing his paws on the glass,
peering in at the light. Whereas others may have reacted with fear and panic,
the exhaustive research I had done helped me to understand a bear’s curious
nature and I knew he would not be able to resist investigating this new
phenomenon. After a few moments at the window, I heard his claws slide off the
glass and he resumed about his business.
We finally met only a week or so
later. It was a late mid-August evening and thunderstorms were threatening in
the thick summer heat. A friend and I were returning to the cabins from our
favorite hangout spot along the river and were greeted by a large black shape
coming up the road toward us.
My friend was excited but nervous
and asked me what we should do. Considering the drive to the cabins was very
narrow, I advised we should move back and allow the bear plenty of space and a
way out lest he feel cornered.
We backed away near a street
light (it was dusk at this time) and watched in awe as the silhouette of one of
the largest animals I had ever seen casually passed in front of us, taking the
exit we had given him and simultaneously giving us a clear path back home. The
stories I had heard were all true: this bear was huge! With a heavily muscled,
trim body and thick tree trunk legs, this guy could give just about any grizzly
in the park a run for its money in the size department. Needless to say, my
friend and I spent a very late night excitedly chatting up the encounter.
Some days later, I was walking
alone down the drive to the cabins in early afternoon and had almost arrived
home when suddenly from what seemed out of nowhere there was a large animal
moving through the thick brush off trail, just about to emerge onto the path
right in front of me. I calmly and firmly called “Hey, bear!” I couldn’t see
him in the brush but he instantly stopped moving, clearly startled. “It’s just
me, bear!” I announced, by now assured that my voice was well known in these
parts due to the many late nights I had spent walking this trail in the dark
after work, calling out the whole way. At that, the bear made a slight course
correction and instead of popping out on the trail, he followed it until he was
behind me, then crossed, giving me only one casual glance in the process.
I only saw him once more that
first year. He returned to the cabins in September with a mysterious foot
injury and spent several days bedded down in the woods nearby while he healed.
In all the time he had been down there, we had never been aggressive towards
him or tried to haze and frighten him away, so he clearly felt this was a safe
place and that he was welcome.
Truth is, he was welcome all over
town. Each morning it was not hard to find excited talk about where the bear
had been seen the previous evening and what he had been doing and if he failed
to appear for a few days, concern for his well-being spread throughout the
little community. Never once did he damage property, raid garbage, or ever
attempt to gain access to anything other than natural foods. Never once was he
exposed to human violence or aggression and he returned that respect to
everyone he met, even during unexpected close encounters. Perhaps there’s a
valuable lesson there that should be taken to heart in our dealings with bears
elsewhere.
When I returned to Glacier in the
summer of 2013, the issue of his whereabouts was the first and most burning
question on my mind. By this point I had used my experiences with Glacier’s
bears the previous summer to deepen my knowledge, had written two articles and
a book on the subject, and considered the black bear of West Glacier to be a
rare enigma, a fascinating and complex creature, and I wanted to know more
about him.
Apparently he felt the same way
about me because, inexplicably, he began seeking me out.
It was late June/early July
before we met again. I was sitting on the porch of my cabin after a long day
when I looked up to my left and saw him fifty feet away watching me with a
gently curious expression framed below his Mickey Mouse ears. He reacted almost
apologetically, as if he were saying “Oh, sorry to bother you”, and moved on
with his usual calm demeanor, disappearing somewhere behind my cabin. “I bet he
bedded down back there,” I remarked later to my friend from the previous year.
To this day, I don’t know why I said that and I don’t even know if I was
serious but I certainly couldn’t have predicted how ironic that statement would
become.
I was catching up on email late
one night when I heard the familiar cracking and snapping of sticks that marked
the bear’s approach. I listened as he sat with a whuff outside my bedroom’s back exit. He leaned his massive frame
against the door, the wood creaking and groaning, then slid onto the ground.
After several minutes I heard deep breathing and then light snoring as the bear
slept. I was amazed, overjoyed, and more than a little bit mindblown. I
couldn’t believe this was happening to me! Once in a while, I would hear him
shift positions, swat at bugs, and even moan in his sleep before the soft
snoring resumed. A not unpleasant animal odor was present throughout and when I
awoke sometime later after dozing off, the smell was gone. So too, I knew, was
the bear.
When I related this experience to
my colleagues, they didn’t seem too surprised. “Of course he came to you,” they
said. “You’re the bear man. He likes you.” Initially I laughed this off but I
had heard more than one bear researcher say that even wild bears seem to be
like cats, able to identify their benefactors and that they even sometimes
gravitate to these people. Could that be the case with this black bear? Was it
just coincidence he ended up at my door or was he picking up on something?
I’m only aware of two or three
other occasions in which he slept outside my door, but I often awoke in the
middle of the night to thumps, bumps, and scrapes on my side of the cabin. I
checked the area for a daybed or any natural foods that may be growing there
and found nothing that would hold his interest. His choice to sleep there
seemed completely random.
Because of the unusually dry
summer, the huckleberry crop was very meager and with its failure, the bear
abandoned the cabin area and moved on to greener pastures. I spent one evening
around dark standing on the beach at the river watching his enormous silhouette
patrolling the high bank of the far shore. Otherwise, he seemed to have
disappeared.
The last time we met in broad
daylight was in late September. The summer season was ending, fall was coming,
and I was getting ready to move on to another job. I was walking along the road
and, to my surprise, found the bear sitting upright alongside a small pine tree
next to the road, watching me as I approached.
I stopped some distance away and
let him see me, then I slowly pulled out my camera. When he saw the strange
object pointed at him, he jumped into the road and started running.
“It’s okay, bear,” I called out
to him. “It’s just me, bear!” At the sound of my voice, he stopped and turned
to look at me, cartoon ears raised high. “It’s okay, buddy,” I implored,
kneeling down in what I hoped would be a peaceful gesture. “Don’t be afraid.”
He visibly calmed, mouth dropping
open, a body language sign of total relaxation. I snapped a couple of bad,
blurry photos and then we watched each other for a few minutes. He made full
eye contact with me for a long moment, with an expression that I can’t quite
define, then walked away, coolly as ever, and followed the railroad tracks out
of town. I watched until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
It was not long thereafter that I
moved across town to take a new job. All my things had been transferred to an
apartment on the roof above my place of work and the old cabin was empty. Near
closing time on my second night of work, one of my fellow employees came in to
tell me that a very large black bear, “the size of a small car” was hanging out
near my apartment.
It can’t be, I thought and I followed him out to take a look.
There, in the dark, was the familiar silhouette of a large healthy bear with
thick tree trunk legs and a white patch on his chest. I couldn’t help but
smile. “Don’t worry about it,” I said to my slightly shaken colleague. “I know
this guy.”
With winter just around the
corner, I expected the bear would move on to a den soon, though probably one not
too far away. Going to bed late one night, I switched off all the lights in my
apartment and looked out the door. There, to my astonishment, on the roof of
the building, was the bear following the wooden walkway up to my door. He came
straight to the glass and we made eye contact through it. He put his nose to my
face and curled up right there for a nap. My jaw was on the floor and I was too
blown away to sleep. He was actually on the roof! Why would he come up here?
Perhaps he really did know I was his benefactor and felt that he should stay
close. Maybe he was just saying hello or goodbye for the winter. Either way, I
could no longer use the word “coincidence” to explain away these encounters.
With a big grin on my face, I
raised a toast to this remarkable animal. “Have a good winter’s sleep, bear,” I
told him. “I’ll see you next year.”
Copyright 2013 Chris Nunnally
