July 31, 2018
What an incredible afternoon! Talk about a lot of bears … a couple close calls!
This morning I thought I got up and on the road for finding bear at 6:30am. Turns out that my watch was set to BC time and I was actually up and searching by 5:30am! Lordy! Don’t know why the time didn’t change, I even got up before the bears! LOL
I drove down to a good spot and waited for close to 4 hours. The State Warden drove by many times and later when I got out to take a pic of an eagle, she stopped and informed me that the bears don’t come down until the afternoon and they usually start up by the bridge at this time.
I drove up to the bridge and waited until 12:30 (was actually 11:30am Alaska time). I met a lovely couple from Florida (Chris and Lindsay) who have been travelling for about 8 months. They too were waiting for some bear shots. After waiting here for over two hours, I thought I would head into town and get caught up on some blogs.
At 3:30pm, Alaskan time, I headed back to the bridge. The State Warden flagged me down and told me that the grizzly sow and three cubs were in the bushes. She informed me that I would have to wait until they came out, but they eventually would and come by the bridge. I thanked her very much and headed to the bridge. After about ten minutes and not seeing them, I drove up the coastline and there they were! The sow and 3 cubs! The cubs were playing, having a grand ol’ time, while Momma Bear worked her way back towards the open field. I took some photo’s but they were too far away to get clear shots.
When I went back to the bridge and waited for over two hours and still no bears. During this time, I had a great chat with people from all over USA. There were two other couples doing the same as I, trying to get the ultimate bear shot. One couple, that I met earlier, waited patiently by the bridge and the other couple (Erin and Shay) also were waiting by the bridge. After a long wait and a great conversation, I decided I would drive up towards the weir to see if any bear were around.
There was a bus that pulled over and I pulled over across from them. I got a hand signal from the people on the bus to ask me to move forward a little bit. Right then I knew there must be a bear nearby. I pulled the vehicle forward and quickly got out and grabbed my camera gear. At first, I could not see the bear through the trees, but saw it moving up the edge of the water. I walked along the road to get to a clearing and then took a few photo’s.
I then moved forward again as the bear was moving along the water’s edge quite quickly. The bus kept stopping in the same places and so I thought I would move quicker and get ahead of the bus and the bear. Well, while walking on the side of the road, I was going by a patch of trees and bushes. I looked down to see the bear coming straight towards me! It was about 35 feet from me and I quickly turned around and slowly walked away. Once I had walked back about 50 feet, I turned around and walked backwards. The bear came out and crossed the road. There was a truck parked on the side and he had kids with them. I let him know that there was a bear nearby and he looked up and saw it cross the road as well. I waited beside his truck in case I had to jump in, he saw that the bear was directly behind his truck. After about 5 minutes I headed back to my truck.
I went to inform the others about seeing a bear and suggested they may want to check up in the area. I left and headed back down to the bear site. I could see them on the bridge and I could also see the weir from where I was strategically sitting. After about an hour, Shay and Erin drove down and asked if I had seen anything. I told them not since the last siting, they headed back to the bridge. I was about to grab a quick bite to eat when Erin drove up and said, “Dan, quick, there are two bears up ahead!” I told here I would meet her up there, that I would drive up. The sow with the three cubs was coming down the other side of the river. Again, they were too far away for great shots and the lighting was not the best.
The bears disappeared and we didn’t see them for a few minutes. I mentioned to the two other couples that these bears are probably heading to the weir. We worked our way down and sure enough, that is what they were doing.
After taking about ten thousand photo’s I saw the two other couples head out and I went back to the truck to get a bite to eat. While sitting in the truck, an elderly lady came up to me and asked if I was going to be there because her husband drove up to the lake and she was worried about not having any protection if a bear was to approach her. I told her I would wait until her husband came back.
After eating I went out to join her. She was constantly watching the hill behind her and also searching for the grizzly with three cubs. We were talking about a variety of things and she mentioned that she keeps looking behind her because sometimes bears come out there. Well, within five minutes of her saying this, a bear did come out where she was looking!
We watched the bear go into the water and it came out with a fish. I believe it squeezed out the eggs and ate them, but left the fish. The bear went back into the water to get another fish and an eagle came down and grabbed the fish!
The bear did not get another fish and came back to the one it had left to find it was gone! HaHaHa The bear went back out on the weir and got halfway when he saw the guy counting the salmon. It quickly turned around, jumped into the water and then came onto the road. The bear decided it would come down towards the elderly lady and I. I was taking photo’s and had the lens zoomed out and the bear still filled the screen. It was at this point that I knew I better make my way back to the truck. LOL
I mentioned to the elderly lady that we better get to my truck. She started running and I told her to walk … I had to say it 5 times, and she finally calmed down. If she didn’t listen and kept on running, I knew I could beat her back to my truck. HaHaHa
She thanked me and indicated that it is funny how you know what you are suppose to do, but how your mind tells you what you ought to do. She appreciated me calming her down.
As I stood behind the truck and the bear went into the water and I got some amazing shots of it swimming. After a few feet it came out of the water, gave itself a shake and then went back in. It quickly swam down the river. In less than two minutes I heard a loud, “Bear!” It was my tenting neighbours Kevin and Darlene from Newfoundland. I thought, oh my, they were fishing in the middle of the river when the bear swam in their direction.
I ran down the road and they indicated the bear had swam down quite a ways and then went inland. I went back to the bridge to inform Shay, Erin, and others that bears are out in the area. They were gone.
I went back to the weir and watched the sow and three cubs for about an hour on the other side of the river. Again, the photo’s were not very clear, but it was fun to watch them.
I headed back to the campsite and invited Kevin and Darlene over. They brought their wine and we had quite a conversation about the bear. I couldn’t see them, but apparently when the bear was swimming, it was heading directly towards Kevin. Kevin hollered, “Bear!” in his Newfoundland accent (that is how I knew it was him that hollered that – LOL). What I didn’t hear or know until we met back at the campsite is that when Kevin saw the bear heading directly towards him, Kevin got out his bear spray, pulled the pin and then started to run through the water towards the bear, saying, “Come on you f&*King bear!” HAHAHAHA … We had a great laugh about that. Kevin also had his GoPro going and videotaped the whole thing. Too funny!