Bear Country–beware and be lucky
Two wisdom teeth tomorrow morning, I’ll be half as smart by noon than I am now, so I felt that I’d better get this off my chest. Given the awful encounters between bears and humans in the U.S. and Canada over the past week, there’s reason to share stories here, stories that underline that bears and humans occupy very different zones in time, space, and cognizance. The message, violated a couple of times below, is to give bears wide births, always, to recognize that the bear is always right, and–I guess–try to be lucky.
In 1967, heading to my first fulltime teaching job at Macalester College we headed through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and encountered numerous bears along the road, begging food, obviously well-versed in their trade. We demurred, where others did not. I saw paws go into car windows and, with two kids and oreo cookies in the back seat, figured that was not a back seat. That evening, in a campground near Jackson Hole, we heard of a garbage dump where bears congregated at the dinner hour. So, curious as always, we took a look. That was where I saw an inebriated individual with a motorcycle and woman saying “don’t!” walk over to a bear who was pawing through a pile of dead fish or somesuch, and try to stick a cigarette in the animal’s mouth. The result, no kidding, was a forearm shiver the likes of which would rank with a NFL linebacker. The Harley guy went backward about thirty feet and went down. Clearly that bear did not smoke.
A second bear encounter occurred two years before that, camping with wife, wife’s sister, and same two (very young) boys, camping out and sleeping under the stars a stone’s throw from the famous Camp Curry, along the banks of the Merced River, with some of the greatest looking scenery around. And also lots of people with campers, trailers, etc. Oh yes, food, too. And at night, the sound of marauding (friendly?) bears around 3 or 4 a.m., coming down the line, overturning anything that was overturnable. (People who leave food out in bear country, especially sweets, are absolutely nuts).
Sure enough, four nights in, our turn came, and with the two boys asleep in the tent, and the three of us lying on the ground, the clanging and crashing sound grew louder. Three campsites down, I suddenly saw it–a good sized beast coming our way. Wife and I immediately awoke, jumped up, tied up and zipped shut the kids in the tent, and ran to the car, ten feet away. So there we were, watching, as the bear walked right over wife’s sister as she slept. Soon the bear was gone……and we returned to our sleeping bags next to wife’s sister. Hard to get back to sleep.
Then, the next morning: Comment to wife’s sister: “Did you know that a bear walked over your sleeping back last night?” Answer: “Oh, Geoff, you make up such wonderful stories. You have such an imagination!” Wife says: “He’s not making it up.” Wife’s sister turns white. End of story.
Next chapter, 1973, Lair of the Bear, Pinecrest CA–a gorgeous U of California Alumni camp for families nestled 5500 feet in the Sierra Nevada, a mile west of Pinecrest, on the way to Sonora Pass–a trip I advise everyone to take, at least once, esp. at night, for at nearly 10,000 feet one can stop a car and literally reach out and grab a star. Or so it seems.
But bear story #3: Dining Hall serves about 400 campers three meals daily, and of course there are goodies in the kitchen, including koolaid powder, you know the stuff you really don’t like to drink unless you have to. The Lair stockpiled a lot of it, because they served koolaid at meals and the kids loved it.
So, the story…one night the cooks and assistants (pot men, salad queen, etc.) failed to lock up the back door to the kitchen and, lo and behold, early the next morning, the store room had been broken into and — yes — things (ie camper meals for the day, as well) were in shambles. Koolaid powder and sugar were everywhere and we knew that we had a problem.
That problem lurked around the Lair for a few weeks and was finally tranquilized by dart gun by our local forest service personnel, who of course do not like to see too much interaction between bears and people in camp and at the adjacent public campgrounds. But of course rules #1 to 10 underline the point that where there is food, there will be animal interest, ranging from mice to larger beings. You’d rather have a mouse as a nuisance than a bear, any day. The forest service then packed the bear into a pickup truck and drove it about 200 miles Northeast and let it off–no way that it would find its way back to the Lair of the Golden Bear (The Camp Name–hah hah!).
But one morning about a month later, a woman came running up to the camp office where I (camp manager) was doing paperwork with my assistant. A beautiful day, gorgeous pines of all description, some 200 feet high, and this camper woman has the termerity to yell, “Geoff, there’s a bear in tent 38, eating a candy bar.”
I was scantily clad that morning, in far better shape than I am now (my legs worked), wearing running shoes and a chartreuse striped swimsuit, nothing more. So I headed down toward tent 38 and saw — yes indeed — a fair-sized brown bear heading up the hill behnd that tent with a candy wrapper in its m0uth.
What to do? Call the forest service? Same bear! It had returned. So what would you do in this situation…..
Check One:
1. Get out of there and call the forest service
2. Run
3. Confront the bear in an unorthodox, constructive way, in a manner that the bear would never forget.
You’re right, I chose #3. I had a broom with me along the dusty trail, and immediately decided to employ my Tarzan, Lord of the Apes mode. I figured that if I did that I had have a chance of making the bear think I was crazy. So I let loose with a “AAAARRRRFFDRRUUUUUUUUUUHAAAAAZHHHHHHHHHHH” and swung the broom around and around and the bear took off up the hill with me in very hot pursuit.
After thirty or forty yards, the bear turned and made a noise and stood up to its seven foot height. It made another noise, and then I went “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKIUUUUUUUUUUUUUUXXXXXXXXXXXXX!”
And I circled up behind the bear and made another Tarzan yell and ran right at the bear, who took off down the camp road, past the office, down past the dining hall, and down the hill into a creek and beyond.” I followed, making Tarzan noises all the way, as staff members and campers looked on, unbelieving, as I was informed later.
The bear ran through the creek, across another campground, and took off, headed somewhere….it was a brown bear with a sweet tooth. I had turned Tarzan and scared shit out of it. And then I began to shake. Wife said, “what did you do?” Son #1 said, “dad was that you chasing a bear?”
And this story really happened. If you don’t believe it, there are witnesses. And I don’t advise chasing bears. But this bear never came back. More bear news to come, after the wisdom teeth go……cheers to all.