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The Bear Facts

      Âthreat, for he continued his foraging even as
      ÂI parked my vehicle and began a short
      Âsemi-circle to insure the wind, such as it
      Âwas this clear, calm day, was completely in
      Âmy favor. It is said that if a leaf
      Âfalls in the forest, the eagle will see it;
      Âthe deer will hear it and the bear willsmell
      The Bearit! His olfactory sense is that
Factssuperior!
      Â      Â
      Â    Slowly and carefully
      ÂI began to pick my way across the old logging
      Âunit. The first thing I discovered was
      Âthat the brush that appeared chest high from
      Âthe road was much taller than it had appeared
      Âfrom the friendly confines of the Tracker and
      ÂI often found myself in a jungle that was
      Âonly possible to see out of by looking
  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Bystraight up! Where possible, I used
down logs to traverse the rugged
      Âterrain. At other times, I was on my
      Âbelly, crawling under the thick brush.Â
      ÂFor more than an hour I sneaked across the
      Âthree hundred yards (270m) I had estimated
      Âhim to be from me when I began this exercise.
      Â I had no idea if the bear was still in
      Âhis place as I crept up on him. It
      Âcertainly would not be the first time I had
  Ã‚  Thom  Cantrallexecuted the "perfect" stalk only to find
that my quarry had long since bugged out for
      Âmore  friendly, if not safer, confines.Â
    The sun had passed
its zenith and the tide was busily filling      Â
the inlet slowing the fishing to the point    At just under what I
that it was time to find other things to dojudged to be one hundred yards (90m) from the
for a time. Besides, after four days ofbruin, I crossed a sizeable log and was able
fishing, the freezer was full and there wasto peek over the brush to see my bear still
no more room to store the salmon wecontentedly munching in his berry patch.Â
caught. Those fish caught in theQuietly, I dropped back down off the log and
morning had been filleted, wrapped andcontinued my stalk, now spending more time on
stuffed into the overcrowded freezer awaitingmy hands and knees than on my feet, slowly,
our  trip  home  in  two  more  days.Âbut inexorably closing the distance
separating  us.
      Â
    From the sleeping      Â
area of the cabin came the rasping and    At fifty yards (45m)
wheezing sound of men sleeping. Thefrom the bear, I came upon a doe and fawn,
thought came to mind that, perhaps, there hadalso feeding on the succulent and tasty
been a woodcutters competition scheduledberries and had to stop my stalk and move to
without my knowledge, but after carefulwhere I could, without being seen, toss a
investigation it wasrevealed to be no morecouple of rocks into the brush near them, but
than four men snoring contentedly, probablynot so close as to scare them. My aim
with visions of thirty pound salmon runningwas to cause them enough distress to leave,
through  their  minds.but not enough to spook them, thereby
spooking my main quarry, Mr. Bear. As
      Âmy right (throwing) shoulder is completely
    Taking advantage ofinoperative due to the lack of a rotator cuff
the lull, I took my gold pan and loaded mywhich has been destroyed by arthritis, I had
carcass into the little Geo Tracker availableto fling the stones with a kind of underhand
for our use and headed for the tiny, no-namemotion. Â It was not pretty, but it was
creek I had spotted in one of my earliereffective as the stones landed close enough
perambulations away from camp. Thisto catch their attention and alert them that
creek showed on my map as being short andnot all was well within the kingdom today and
fairly steep, falling from some high countrythat it was perhaps prudent to move on to
that gave every indication of containingmore receptive climes. The result was,
mineral and I was excited to do some testas I had hoped, they simply moved off into
pans.the  brush,  not  panicked,  but merely wary.
      Â      Â
    As is my usual wont,    With their
I wanted to know as much as I could learndeparture, I continued crawling thru the
about the stream before investing time andre-prod (newly planted) timber and brush
energy into the testing to increase myuntil I figured I should be within bow range
chances of finding mineral by eliminatingof the big bear. Although I was totally
prospecting in unproductive waters. Tounarmed, my original goal was to see if I
this end, I turned the Tracker up the old,could get within range of my bow without him
semi- overgrown logging road that seemed tosensing my presence. At that point I
parallel the stream up the mountain.Âfound a large stump that I felt I could scale
About a half mile off the main road, thefairly easily. Doing so afforded me a
logging spur veered sharply east and up amagnificent view, not only of my immediate
short ridge, away from the stream. Â As Ivicinity and Mr. Bruin, quite in view at a
reached the peak of the ridge, I stopped torange of between thirty and thirty-five yards
look out over the basin through which the(27-32 m), still enjoying his fruitful
creek  meandered.repast, but across the island to the east,
the straits and on towards the mountains on
      Âthe mainland east of Wrangell and Petersburg.
    To my utter dismay,
the creek flowed out of a very beautiful and      Â
very substantial lake! It was quite    To say I was stunned
scenic and picturesque to behold, but itwould not do justice to that moment. It
destroyed my hopes of finding any color inwas absolutely the most magnificent panorama
its waters, let alone the Mother Lode everyI could ever hope to view. I was so
prospector expects to find with each pan heenthralled, I momentarily forgot my
washes! Any gold in the stream wouldbear. I used the rest of the roll of
settle out in the lake and not be carriedfilm in my little Nikon camera on the view,
further  down  stream.temporarily forgetting I had come to see the
bear.
      Â
    Disappointed but not      Â
disillusioned, I continued up the road, past    When my sanity
the lake and into the upper reaches of thereturned after a short hiatus, I judged the
now tiny rill. I now had nothingbear to be in the "nice bear" class on the
particular on my mind, but was merely on anTwangg Universal Scoring System. The
exploring trip, seeing what I could see oflevels on this system are quite simple and
this vast and beautiful country that wasdon't involve a lot of superfluous
Alaska. Â Presently, I left the cover ofmeasurements as to most other scoring systems
the timber and entered an area of almostin use today. It simply goes from
alpine beauty. There were extensive"little bear" to "good bear", "nice bear",
meadows interspersed with a multitude of"great bear", "OH MY GOSH" and the ultimate
beaver ponds, with a tiny stream vigorouslyis "Faints Dead Away". I use this same
working its way from one pond to the next asscoring system on all major game species and
it made its way down the slope toward thesome fish. It's the most universal
lake I'd seen earlier.  Between thesesystem ever devised. For safety's sake,
diminutive ponds, stands of spruce andwhen applying this system to the Grizzly
hemlock with an occasional pine struggled toBear, Ursus Horriblis, any class above
make  a  living  in  the  damp,  boggy  soil."little bear" should be done while vacating
the area the bear inhabits! Further, it
      Âis recommended that any larger Grizz in the
    As I left this area,TUSS scale be estimated from film taken while
I entered a region that had been loggedretreating!
several years ago. My best estimate
would be six to eight years had elapsed since      Â
it was logged. The stumps of great    This was definitely
Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock and Red Cedara lone boar and would measure between five
stood as silent testament to the great standand one half and six feet (about 2m). Â
of timber that had once stood here.ÂHe weighed about 375-400 lbs (170-180 kg) on
Everywhere, there were young trees growing inthe foot (bears don't have hooves)! He
the comparatively drier soil, giving promisewas a very nice bear... maybe even a "great
to the great stand of timber that would soonbear" and, if I had been so inclined and so
be found here again in a very few years.Âarmed, he would have been a very simple
Today, though, it was at the prime age fortarget. As it was, however, all I
wildlife as the brushes were growing in greatwished to do was to watch him and learn
profusion at just the age of maximumsomething of his traits from close
tenderness and nutrition. The smallobservation.
Sitka Blacktail deer indigenous to Southeast
Alaska were everywhere! They obviously      Â
found the young brushes to besucculent eating    All too soon, a
and were making good time on getting theirvagrant wind betrayed my presence to his
fair  share.ultra-sensitive nose and he began a slow,
careful, tactical retreat. I got my
      Âcamera reloaded in time to get only a couple
    As I continuedof longer range shots, but he will live
higher on the mountain, I was watching veryforever  in  the  view  screen  of  my  mind.
closely as the blueberry and huckleberry
brushes were becoming more prevalent and      Â
berries in this area generally means bears!    As I retreated in my
 It was not long before I was rewardedturn to my vehicle after his departure, I
and I spotted a lone black bear feeding onpondered God, Life and Bears and our place in
the ripening blueberries growing in profusionthe overall scheme of things, a scheme that
around him. A lone bear probably meantwe all too often don't understand or cannot
it was a boar as, carefully as I watched, Icomprehend, but suffice it to know that such
could find no evidence of young ones or ofplaces and such creations do exist.Â
this bear paying heed to what could have beenThat is sufficient unto my soul for the
another bear. This bear had evidentlypresent... perhaps for always...
either not seen me, or did not consider me a



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