"Where The Bear Walks" the book is officially underway!

I've posted before my plans to adapt this blog into book form. Now that I've returned home from Glacier National Park, I feel that the time is right and I've officially begun. I had tried once or twice to write the beginnings of an introduction only to find that the opening is the most difficult part. I've now written a handful of pages in half an hour and the gates have finally been opened. Words and ideas are bursting forth now. The introduction, which I expected to be the hardest part, is now looking like a piece of cake. I still expect it to be a slow process, but at least the journey is finally underway.

 

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My final days in Glacier proved to be of some interest. The black bear that I mentioned in the previous post returned while I was sitting outside my cabin one evening. he came down out of the woods, crossed the driveway, looked back at me for a moment, then hobbled on towards the river, a noticeable limp in one of his front legs. Word got around very quickly about the injury, but no one knew what had caused it. The bear seemed to disappear until just before I left town. I saw him that last night at the river. He appeared at dusk, still limping, swam across the water, and hobbled off into the woods, snapping sticks the whole way (I cannot stress the importance of snapping sticks while hiking. Every bear that I've heard in the woods has done this as they walked to warn other bears that a larger animal is approaching. This is a much more effective technique for recreationists than simply talking or yelling).

 

As incredible as the encounters with the black bear were, I longed to see a grizzly or, as the Indians called them, "the real bear", noting that the timid nature of the black bear doesn't even lump it into the same category. While camping at Many Glacier in late September, I got my wish. We had observed early that morning a young black and silver grizzly feeding on a hillside through binoculars. A hike to spectacular Iceberg Lake later that morning brought us to the crest of that same hillside and, waiting in the trail about a mile in and 100 yards or so away, was that very same grizzly. He had been walking the trail headed in our direction until he saw us coming, then he seemed to become undecisive as to what he should do. We could easily see that the bear's mouth was hanging open like a dog's, a clear body language signal that indicated complete relaxation. He was not at all stressed to encounter us. We waited in the trail for a long time, watching him as he foraged for wild flowers. He started moving further up the trail and we moved with him, keeping him in sight but maintaining that 100 yard distance. Other hikers showed up and we all just stood, watching quietly. It was late in the season after all when bears are forced to scramble for calories to get them through hibernation, so we didn't want to push him away if he had found a viable food source. Finally, he seemed to sense that we wanted to move on and he moved off the trail and down the slope into thick grass, allowing us to pass only thirty feet away. We didn't see him again, but we did stand six feet away from a mother deer and her young and were pleasantly surprised to find the lake still very much full of ice, making it a very good trip all around!

 

Back to work on the book for now. I'll keep providing updates and offer a link to the book on this site when it's finished.

The Night of the Grizzlies, 45 Years Later

Michele Koons (top) and Julie Helgeson.

This August 12th and 13th, as planned, I visited both Granite Park Chalet and Trout Lake for the anniversary of the fatalities that occurred that long ago fateful night. While I can't say that there were any stunning revelations as to why I've felt such a strong connection to both victims, visiting the sites has given me a sense of deep peace and personal closure on the matter and, in a strange sense of irony, the evening of August 14th ended with my very first wild bear encounter, capping off what was one of the best hiking/wilderness experiences I've ever had.

Early on August 12th, I set off following the same path that Julie Helgeson and Roy Ducat took on the same day in 1967, along the Highline Trail to Granite Park Chalet. Despite all the hours I've clocked hiking and exploring in Alaska, the Highline, with its sweeping panoramic views, was the best hike I have ever been on and Granite Park Chalet was extraordinary and beautiful. Seated along the alpine country that surrounds the Chalet, with vast mountain vistas rising before me in every direction, I flipped through my paperback copy of Jack Olsen's book and compared some of the black and white photos to the real thing. Obviously the terrain has changed somewhat, but I was able to find some of the locations shown in the book. I did not attempt to locate the old campground where the attack occurred, but instead sat 500 yards above it outside the Chalet taking in the view and the quiet serenity. Before leaving, I stood in the dining room of the Chalet, where Julie ultimately lost her life, easily the most heartbreaking of the two tragedies due to the amount of time that she spent lying alone and wounded in the dark, no doubt wondering if the bear was going to come back for her. As badly as I wanted to stay at the Chalet that night, it is almost always overbooked and getting reservations can be very difficult, so I began making my way down the Loop Trail. I felt a pang of sadness when I caught one final view of the Chalet peeking over the granite hillside and I knew then that I would be back here some day. It's the closest I've found to Heaven on earth.

The journey to Trout Lake on the 13th was not so relaxed. The trail is very narrow, runs through thick, heavy brush in prime grizzly and cougar country, and receives little human traffic. Fortunately there were several visitors that day, perhaps also there for the anniversary, so I decided to cowboy up and make the journey. Despite my initial apprehension about venturing into that area, I found that my fear faded away quickly, replaced by a strange calmness, as I entered the heavily-damaged burn area on the Lake McDonald side of Howe Ridge and a level of heightened awareness came over me that I had never experienced before, despite all the time I've spent in grizzly country. I clapped my hands and called out often as there were many blind corners and thick berry patches along the trail. Occasionally I picked up a large stick and snapped it, sending smaller creatures scattering for cover. The track of a grizzly's hind foot was pressed deep into the mud about halfway up the trail, but the bear that left it was nowhere to be seen. When I reached the Trout Lake side of the ridge, that twinge of nervousness returned. I had moved out of the open burn area which provided no cover from the pounding sun and the blazing 90 degree temperatures and entered a darker, cooler terrain virtually untouched by the fire. If the rest of the park was the bears backyard, this was their living room, though I was more concerned about mountain lions than grizzlies.

After the steep climb over and down Howe Ridge, I arrived at Trout Lake and the famous logjam. Although the campsite has long been closed down and nobody stays the night there anymore, it is very near this area where Michele Koons lost her life, her death more mercifully swift than Julie Helgeson's at Granite Park. I'm only able to guess from that little info where the campsite was but that feels irrelevant compared to just being there. I stand at the shore of the lake, gazing out over the logjam and turquoise waters, Heaven's Peak towering above. The other hikers have disappeared, either back up the ridge or further down the trail to Arrow Lake, and I'm left alone in this peaceful place. This and Granite Park have already become two of my favorite places in Glacier and I think they will remain that way. There are no man-made tributes to Julie and Michele at either of these sites and I don't think there need to be; the stunning beauty of the country and the silence that hangs over it like a blanket is the best memorial anyone could ever have and ensures that their lives will long be remembered. Like Granite Park Chalet, I'm sad to leave Trout Lake but I know I'll return here one day. That night I'm sore and tired from two big trips in as many days, but I feel a sense of peace so deep that it's almost a tangible thing and I can't stop smiling. There is a very strong spirit in those places and it's ready to touch anyone who is receptive to it.

August 14th:

Late in the evening I'm returning home from the Flathead River with a friend and co-worker. Lightning illuminates the western sky in those final minutes before dusk. As we walk off the main road onto the private drive to the employee cabins, we are stopped by the sight of a dark, lumbering shape coming up the drive towards us. We're not terribly concerned; this is the 300 pound black bear that's been foraging in the area for weeks and who has been behaving in a very docile manner during close encounters with people, so we backed away and gave him plenty of room to get out. He crossed the entrance of the drive 50 yards away from us, entered the foliage, and emerged onto the main road, eating berries as he moved in the opposite direction. Just as we started down the gravel path, he ducked back into the foliage and started coming down the slope back to the drive, right toward us. We clapped and announced our presence. He stopped for a moment and then went crashing through the brush. We grabbed our bear spray in case we were being charged. With the increasing darkness, we couldn't see what happened, but the bear seemed to be gone so we continued on to the cabins, bubbling with excitement and chatting up the encounter the whole way. The bear did not, as far as I know, follow us. Kind of ironic in a way, it served as an interesting exclamation point to the previous couple of days.

The Bears Have Arrived!

It was midnight and I was lying in bed watching a movie on my portable DVD player. The player was casting an eerie blue light across the curtained window over my bed. From outside, I hear sticks snapping as a large animal approaches. Suddenly the animal rears up and I hear claws tap on the glass. I hear it sniffing around and then the claws scrape across the glass as it drops back down. Sticks resume snapping as it walks away. For a time, I lay there paralyzed with terror and then I force myself to cut through the fear and recall all the knowledge I've gained about bears. In the dark, it's easy to imagine the bloodthirsty monster but I know this is just the black bear that's been patrolling the area for several nights and dining on wildflowers near the cabins, occasionally encountering people and reacting with no signs of aggression. I know he has never seen such a strange light at my window and I know his reaction was simply out of curiosity, considering that he lingered at the window only long enough to assess the situation before moving on with disinterest. But it's not easy telling yourself that in the dark, where the monsters and demons lurk, waiting to rend and rip human flesh. The fear of bears: a primal response to an unfairly demonized animal, a response that is often irrational and unnecessary. What the human mind can conjure is often worse than the reality, leaving nothing but the fear itself as your greatest enemy.

The Glacier Park Bear Situation

One week so far in West Glacier, Montana on the outskirts of Glacier National Park and the bears have already been making headlines. While I have not yet encountered any, many people that I know have. One co-worker has had 11 grizzly encounters so far this summer and others say the bears have been irritable and confrontational due to a shortage of wild huckleberries. In several of these encounters, the ornery bears were discovered in the middle of hiking trails, silently following people on their treks, only to run hurriedly away when spotted. Sounds like simple curiosity to me but is nonetheless very bizarre behavior.

I'm staying in a cabin near the Flathead River, a five minute walk through heavy brush and a few huckleberry bushes. Job duties have occasionally required me to stay late and walk home through this brush in total darkness. I've been sure to carry bear spray and a flashlight and make lots of noise but it still manages to get my heart racing. Now, just recently, a 300 pound black bear has been spotted in the area of the cabins and eating huckleberries on the nearby road, exhibiting no fear of people. Plans are to capture and relocate the bear to an area that is isolated from human use, yet rich in available foods. The good news is that the huckleberries seem to be coming out now, so perhaps these encounters will decrease.

Plans are still in place to hike the Highline Trail to Granite Park Chalet on August 12th. I had originally intended to visit Trout Lake on the 13th but that could happen sooner. While the Highline Trail receives heavy usage, Trout Lake is seldom traversed and is not a place I care to go to alone. More updates soon.

Arizona Attacks and the Face of Bear Management

By now, everyone is no doubt very familiar with the alarming rash of black bear attacks in the mountains of Arizona throughout the month of June. Two of the attacks involved people in tents, another a man in a partially-finished cabin, and the other, most disturbingly, in a condominium parking lot. The offending bears (or what is believed to be the offending bears) were destroyed without prior confirmation that they were responsible for the attacks. This is a shocking number of incidents in such a short period of time and is more similar to the Yellowstone bear attacks of 2010. Those tragedies were caused by the loss of the whitebark pines and the nuts they produce, which are a major source of protein for grizzlies. Could something similar have caused the Arizona attacks?

Jim Paxon, Information Branch Chief for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, told me in an e-mail that the Southwest has been ravaged by extreme drought and that has resulted in a dearth of natural bear foods. So much so that even the normally shy and reclusive black bears have resorted to such drastic measures as tent raiding and bullying. Fortunately, the attacks did not seem to be predatory and were apparently stopped before reaching that level. But with the bears at these critical stages of desperation (and the Yellowstone grizzlies in a similar boat), it's time to seriously re-evaluate some of our bear management techniques and start seriously enforcing that visitors to bear country take the proper precautions. I feel that it should be mandatory for campers to carry and erect electric fences around their campsite and that recreationists who do not keep a clean and orderly site should be asked to pack up and leave. I also feel that hikers should be required to carry at least two cans of bear spray at all times and that proper training on their usage be given by park rangers. Some may dislike the idea of such rules but with the lack of natural food sources, the lack of proper safety techniques will only lead to more injuries and deaths.

Supplemental feeding must also be considered as a viable option. I forwarded some information on the topic to Mr. Paxon and asked him to consider it in the future. To my surprise and delight, he was intrigued by the idea and said that he would share it for consideration among the other bear managers. The only potential problem is that the execution of a feeding program will likely require more manpower than the department is staffed for. Even so, it's exciting to speak to a government bear manager who's actually receptive to the idea and sees the value in it. We need others with that mindset, because the days of sloppy bear management are going to have to come to an end.

Speaking of bad bear management, I posted several months ago about the night of the grizzlies incident and the strange connection I have long felt to the victims of that tragic night. I will soon have the opportunity to spend some time in Glacier National Park and will be there on the 45th anniversary of the attacks. I plan to visit both sites while there and pay my own respects. I'm told by some who work in the park that a large number of people visit the sites each August for the same reason. Most astonishing is the large number of hits I get on this blog due to internet searches related to the incident and the two girls (sometimes almost a dozen per day), so whatever hold that night has on me, I'm certainly not the only one in its grip. I don't know if being there will make that mystery any clearer, but I know it's something I have to do. That experience will be the subject of future writings: an article, blog updates, and a book that I will be starting on later this year. I've tried getting the book underway several times, but I always get the feeling that I should wait...and now I know it's because this experience must come first. Only afterwards will the words be there.

Condolences to Charlie Russell

Condolences and well-wishes go out to Charlie Russell, one of the greatest pioneers of bear/human co-existence, whose son Anthony died peacefully of cancer the morning of July 4th. Thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie and his family in this difficult time.

The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams

In the past, we've given special attention to individuals like Doug Seus and Casey Anderson who have successfully raised, tamed, and befriended bears in captivity. In that spirit, it would be remiss of me to not give the famous Grizzly Adams his due for being perhaps the first person to pioneer such a feat. Although his methods of taming were not as kind as Seus's and Anderson's, the end result was no less extraordinary.

John Adams (aka James Capen Adams) was born near Boston, Massachusetts in 1812 but ultimately landed in California after being taken west by the Gold Rush. In those days, before the mass extermination of the large majority of the West's wildlife, California was home to thousands of grizzlies and Adams set himself up as a hunter and trapper. In 1853, he set out on an expedition to western Montana where he captured a yearling female grizzly which he named Lady Washington. At first, the little cub proved to be a violent and angry force to be reckoned with but, after rewarding her ferocity and ill-temper with a healthy dose of his own, she seemed to learn her place and, in Adams's words, "followed me like a dog." Over time, he trained her to carry packs on her back and pull a loaded sled. She even allowed him to ride her like a horse, shared his meals, and accompanied him on hunting expeditions in which she would cuddle with him to keep him warm on cold nights. Adams would later state, after she had stood defensively by his side during an encounter with a wild grizzly, that she was his closest companion and that "I felt for her an affection which I have seldom given any human being." Perhaps most remarkable was an incident in which Lady Washington began an "affair" with a wild grizzly that had been entering Adams's camp under cover of darkness. Adams disapproved of the meetings and the Lady apparently picked up on this, for she ultimately refused to leave behind her domesticated world in favor of the wild one, though she did ultimately give birth to a cub that Adams named General Fremont in honor of the American military officer.

In 1854, Adams captured a two-week old male grizzly cub from a den near Yosemite Valley. He named the little bear Ben Franklin (pictured with Adams in the illustration above) and set about on the same training and taming regimen he had prepared for Lady Washington. In 1855, Ben saved Adams's life by viciously attacking and fighting off a sow grizzly after it mauled the man. Both Adams and Ben suffered severe wounds in the encounter, including a head wound that would claim Adams's life in 1860. On several other occasions, both Lady Washington and Ben Franklin would fight valiantly to protect Adams from fierce grizzlies on hunting expeditions.

Other bears eventually came into Adams's life, including Samson, a monster weighing in at 1,500 pounds. Adams gave up hunting and began traveling with his animals as a type of living museum. He could often be seen walking the streets of San Francisco with Lady Washington and Ben Franklin loyally following behind, completely unrestrained. Ben Franklin died of an incurable illness on January 17, 1858 and The San Francisco Evening Bulletin ran his obituary under the heading "Death of a Distinguished Native Californian." Adams later relocated his animals to New York City and joined with P.T. Barnum. He died of illness in 1860.

Personally, I find these accounts extraordinary and, in light of what's been accomplished by Doug Seus, Casey Anderson, and others, I can't believe that it's just a fluke. There clearly seems to be something more complex than just base wild instinct inside the mind of the bear and these events more than speak to its existence. Could the fact that bears are closely related to dogs mean that they have many of the same attributes? I have been told of a study conducted by a biologist showing how grizzlies may have been the next species domesticated had they not been mostly exterminated, but I haven't been able to track down a copy. Honestly, I can't say that I'm the least bit surprised to hear someone make that claim. Having been face to face with grizzlies, I can clearly see those qualities in them...particularly in the right situation.

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In other news, I've written a photo and info book on Fortress of the Bear and it's available to read online. I was going to try selling some copies, but they're printing prices are so high and their bulk prices so outrageous that I would lose more money than I would make. It is, however, available to read at the following link: http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/all/fortress-of-the-bear-7310670

Sources:

The Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California by Theodore H. Hittell, 1860.

The Beast That Walks Like Man by Harold McCracken, 1955

Grizzlies and Grizzled Old Men by Mike Lapinski, 2006