August 2, 2002

• From a recent expedition to our old place across the road, I brought back a bunch of old photographs.  When I found the one below, it brought to mind a story.  It is two stories, really.  Two of us were present when it happened, and each of us tells it differently.  You’ll get my version.

  
  

  It was July, 1978.  Doug was not born yet, and his dad and I had been together for four years.  Charley and I lived on the edge of Anchorage and got away from the city to camp and fish whenever we could.  This was a trip to South Rolly Lake Campground, only about thirty miles from where I am right now, just the other side of Willow.

  
  

  When we drove into the campground the night before, the first thing we spotted was a bear sign.  Not bear sign, which looks enough like human droppings that sometimes I wonder, when walking in the woods, whether I’ve come along behind a bear or an uncouth human hiker.  Anyhow, what we saw on every post, garbage can, outhouse and water source were signs put up by the park service warning of bear sightings in the park.  A sow and two cubs, one a yearling and the other new that spring.

  
  

  Later, a ranger came around and repeated all the warnings that were printed on the signs:  keep food and garbage in bear-proof containers; never eat or store food in your tent; if you see the bears, don’t approach them; don’t try to pet the cubs because mama wouldn’t like that.

  
  

  Until then, all the bears I’d smelled up close were in zoos, and I did recognize the scent of bear on the wind about the same time we heard exclamations from some other campers.  We stepped into the road in time to watch a gaggle of campers watching mama bear and big and little baby bears amble off into the woods.

  
  

  After we set up camp, Charley wet a fishhook while I wandered around and took pictures of the wild roses, iris, waterlilies and such.  Late in the day, I got some beautiful shots of trees and sky reflected in the lake.  Then we crawled into the sack for the night.

  
  

  In the morning, I was cooking breakfast when I heard Charley say quietly, “Hey, Sweetie, look here.”  The middle-size bear, the yearling, was trying to open our ice chest.  Then it spotted or scented the open loaf of bread by the firepit, zipped over and grabbed it and hustled off into the trees while I was trying to remember where I left the camera.

  
  

  It was over in a moment, and I was standing there with breakfast scorching in the pan, a camera in my hands and no bear to be seen.  I set the camera on the picnic table and bent to my cooking when a rustling sound caught my attention.  The bear was up on its hind legs, reaching for a roll of paper towels we had placed in an empty bread bag for protection from the drizzle.

  
  

  The bear reached for the roll of towels an instant before Charley did.  Charley grabbed the towels away from the bear and whopped it over the nose with them.  Little black bear jerked back, startled, turned and went back the way it had come.  Aghast that Charley had so boldly disobeyed all the ranger’s bear advice, I grabbed my camera and followed the bear into the woods with Charley standing there saying, “Nnooo, don’t go in the woods after it, the sow could be out there!”

  
  

  I didn’t have to go far before I found it, hunched over the loaf of bread it had dropped to come back for the towels.  I took four or five shots, most of them of the top of its head as it bent over its meal.  Then I got its attention; it looked up at me and I got this shot.  Right after that, it lifted its lip and showed its teeth and growled softly and I backed away and let it finish it’s whole wheat breakfast in peace.

  • 9:00 pm
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