My last blog ended with two words that I never should have written . . . so far! I talked about the best bear story of the season . . . so far. It was an open invitation for the universe or a bear to turn around and bite me "you know where". Well, you may imagine just where a bear would be tempted to bite a person.
You would be wrong.
Someone, someplace, sometime in the past week shared a bear tale. When in Alaska, in my experience, the major conversations at the dinner table tend to be about fishing, hunting, and more fishing. That never happens in my life in Ohio. It’s safe to say never. Never!
But, not in Alaska.
The someone telling this tale talked about a hunter who shot a moose. He brought the critter back to the campsite to do whatever you might do with a moose corpse. I only eat chocolate mousse, so I don’t know what you’d do with the other kind. First of all, upon arrival at the camp, the hunter bragged about his remarkable hunting abilities. However, whatever he wanted to do with the moose never happened. A bear showed up at camp and took the moose out into the river for a swim.
An Innocent Moose - not really meant for consumptionFrom a distance where nobody could do anything about it, the bear bit off the front of the moose’s face and then ripped the skin off the skull. It was too late for the moose to care. The great hunter was horrified. Everyone else pretty much had a great chuckle.
I would have too. Closer to home, at my sister’s river camp, they had some bear business of their own going on. Some of the groundskeepers gathered up trash from the shed to haul off to the dump. Late September and early October may be warm where you live, but it is unusually cold in Alaska. Cold that includes snow! And, with the new winter hours, the dump was closed.
The boys drove the truckload of garbage back to the camp. Now, they should have hauled the trash back into the storage shed that is behind an electrical fence that keeps bears out. But, something like that didn’t occur to them. They left the load of trash in the back of the truck. You might find the smell mildly offensive. Perhaps, horribly offensive. I certainly would. However, to the local bear population, it was an open dinner invitation to one and all.
And, the bears came.
A not-so-secure porch entrance and the bear's trail of leftovers
On this particular occasion, five bears showed up – two mamas and three cubs. I guess the cubs were adorable, but I never saw them. In the middle of the night, the bears unloaded the trash for the groundskeepers. They spread it all over the place as they feasted. They might have been delighted about the meal, but nobody else seemed to be, especially the boys who had to clean up the remains of the feast the next morning.
I’ve learned something else about bears. If they find food someplace, they tend to come back for seconds. It might be in the middle of the night, or in the wee hours of the morning, or even at suppertime. One evening during the meal, two bear cubs tumbled across the tundra right up to the windows of the dining hall. Guests were delighted. My brother-in-law and their mama, not so much. The bears probably had a good night of sleep, but my brother-in-law stayed up all night, patrolling the campground and keeping his guests safe and alive.
Back to that “so far”. It came back to nearly bite me much closer to home. My sister’s home is a fixer-project on the tundra. It’s set on a beautiful lake, but it needs a lot of work. You already know from a previous blog that bats sometimes enjoy the attic - with or without a belfry. Another thing on the fixer upper list is the front porch door. It is missing a door knob. It’s been on the “to do” list for a while, but that’s not the kind of thing I do. The door closes, but it just doesn’t lock.
I’ll give you one guess where my sister stores her trash before taking it to the dump. Yep, that very porch. And since there is no lock, on the same night that five bears feasted at the river camp, another bear decided to accept a gracious dinner invitation. After all, my sister is a wonderful cook.
A not-so-secure porch entrance and the bear's trail of leftoversBears can claw, smash, and slash their way into almost any location they want. That door, even with a lock, was not any kind of barrier. If a bear wanted in, he was going to get in. And, he wanted in. We didn’t hear when he accepted his invitation. The first clue was when my nephew walked through the porch the following morning around 5:00 AM to go cook breakfast. He heard a noise outside and flashed his phone to the left. Down a newly blazed trail in the tundra, the bear left a path of trash in his wake. But when he saw the light, he fled the scene. However, it cannot be said that he vanished without a trace.
But, let me discuss my sister’s home in a little more detail. On the other side of the porch, away from the door without a lock, was another very fragile glass French doorway. Nothing about the door could prevent a bear if he was ever so inclined to stroll into the next room. That next room was the family living room. However, it also happened to serve as my very public bedroom for the entire time I was in Alaska. Everyone else in the home was hidden behind doors. The doors weren’t sturdy enough to stop a bear, but I still would have preferred cowering behind one of them under the circumstances.
Now, every night I’ve been in Alaska, my bedroom has been like Grand Central Station. Family and friends watch movies in my room, usually movies so awful that I’d never watch them, and often well after I've gone to bed. On occasion, people crash on the couch. Perhaps you don’t mind uninvited guests crashing in your bedroom, but it isn’t my favorite part of my Alaskan experience. And, all hours of the night, lights go on and feet more than patter across the floor as various people use the only bathroom in the house. I’ve heard it all.
But, I never heard the bear bust into the front porch and feast on our garbage!
That critter had every opportunity to smash through the French doors and amble closer to me than I ever needed to experience nature. In my earlier blog, I talked about Bat Boy screaming like a bat out of hell when he awoke with a bat on his face. He wouldn’t hold a candle to my screams if I awoke to a bear in my bedroom. Of course, I wouldn’t scream very long if he bit off half my face and ripped the skin off my skull. Yep, that’s one of the pitfalls of education. I now know what that critter would do to me.
So, yes, I’ve had yet another Alaskan bear experience. I have lived to tell about it, thank you very much. And, I AM NOT ENDING THIS BLOG WITH ANOTHER SO FAR! But, remember, I told you that bears return to a place once they’ve found food there. I don’t plan on sleeping well any time soon in Alaska.
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Muddy paws are better than bloody claws.
P.S. Thankfully, I didn’t have another personal encounter with a bear in my last few days in Alaska. But, the blog does come with an extra little bit to add to the story.
There was more excitement at the river camp when my sister arrived to prepare for breakfast. She didn’t see a bear, fortunately, but like I have already told you, once they find food, bears like to return to the scene of the feast. One bear, most likely one that enjoyed the invitation to the dump truck, came back for seconds.
How did anyone know about his visit when there was no food around for him? Good question. The bear was nobody’s fool. He knew that his last meal was in a vehicle. And, my sister had several vehicles around the dining hall. Peering into each window, looking for food, the bear pawed his way around every one of the trucks parked in the lot. Muddy bear paw prints followed along as he searched. I don’t think he found anything to munch on except the mirror that was ripped off the left side of a van.
When my brother-in-law drove into town, even the locals wanted to take pictures of the bear prints. They’d never seen anything like it before. As for me, I found it a delightful Alaskan story. I was so glad that the bear returned to the river camp instead of the front porch next to my bedroom. Any day, every day, I’d rather hear about a van with muddy paws instead of my dead body with bloody claws.
