The Hunter's Alaska

by Roy F. Chandler

  In agony, but fearful of the bear's return, the hiker lay in a drizzling rain for three hours. He then dared to move and made his way to help. He nearly died from pneumonia.

  The victim was one of those sensitive environmentalist souls who would never hunt and did not like those of us who did. Yet, he told me that during the mauling and the long hours of playing dead he would have traded all he had or hoped to have for a loaded .44 magnum pistol. To that I say, "Amen!"

  The following is a story of grizzly bear attack that I included in a book titled The Sweet Taste. This description encompasses both bear and victim's actions during such an incident.

  … A quarter of a mile along we broke into a clearing. Twenty yards across it a yearling cub stood up to look at us. I stopped short and stuck out an arm to hold back the senator. Just in case, I began unslinging my rifle—looking hard for the sow that could have been close by, perhaps with another cub.

  Gill walked right through my restraining arm, brushing it uncaringly aside. He headed for the yearling and said right out loud, "By God, Gene, there is one!"

  One hell! The cub squeaked in fright, and mama came out of closer cover like a freight train.

  The senator froze between me and the sow grizzly. I took a step to the side, jacking a round into the chamber of my .458. Then Gill hit the panic button. For all of his hunting, he had never faced a five hundred pound charging grizzly bear at forty feet, and he didn't this time.

  The senator made an instant one hundred and eighty degree turn and started for camp. Concentrating on the bear, I leaned to let him go by. I saw his eyes like silver dollars just before he knocked me ass over teakettle. I held onto the rifle, but that was about all. Gill let out a fear-filled squall—probably because the collision slowed him down—and kept going.

  The sow was in my face before I could begin to reorganize. She plowed into me the way Gill had, and I landed on my back—which isn't good with a bear on top of you.

  I shoved my rifle stock into the bear's mouth, too scared to even gag on her foul breath. The sow shook the rifle out of my hands with a single twist of her head. A forepaw cuffed me in the ribs and about tore me in half. In case the first one failed, another ripping kind of smash to the same area made certain. The sow turned away to savage my rifle—leaving me for later, probably. I went for my pistol.

  Not one man in a hundred carries a pistol hunting, but I do. A .44 magnum is only about as powerful as a common 30/30. That is not enough for a grizzly, but it beats the hell out of trying judo. When the sow remembered me, I was grateful for the handgun.

  I shot fast and as straight as I could. I saw a chunk blow out of the bear's head, but she still got to me. Her jaws closed on my leg, and she swung me into the air before a willow thicket stopped my progress. I put a second bullet somewhere into her, but she just got wilder, jerking me around and clawing with a front paw.

  The sow had me, and a piece of my mind knew I was already hurt awful bad. I stuffed the pistol's muzzle against her head and double-actioned a third and a fourth Keith flat-nosed slug into her. This time I got nerves, and the bear's weight collapsed on me. She didn't even twitch, but I placed my last round carefully to make sure.

  I couldn't get a decent breath, sweat blotted my vision, and my hands shook so badly I could hardly hold the pistol, but where was the cub—and there could be a pair. A yearling grizzly would weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. That much bear was more than I needed. I got the revolver open and thumbed the ejection rod. Fumbling extra cartridges into the chambers took forever, but I got it done and felt a lot safer with the Smith and Wesson reloaded.

  Still no cubs. I pushed my unchewed leg against the sow's weight and got out from under. A lot of red meat showed through my ruined pant leg, but my ribs hurt too much to look further.

  I heard Dave, the cook, coming, banging pans together and whooping like a Comanche. I hung on until he and the senator got there. Then I faded out and stayed gone for an hour or so.

  The trip out was about what you would expect. Morphined up, I hadn't a care in the world, and Alaskan hospitals know what to do with bear maulings …

  There is rarely any sense in seeking revenge on Alaskan bears that have attacked a human. While elimination of such "man-killers" might be advisable in a lower forty-eight National Park, there is no indication that brown or grizzly bears in Alaska develop a taste for humans or support aggressive anti-human attitudes.

  The big bears seem above such petulant practices and appear to be merely enforcing their determination to be left alone, especially by the ill-smelling creatures that move about on two legs.

  This is my old hunting companion with a pair of remembrances our taxidermists used to offer. His right hand holds a moose foot; the left, a grizzly paw made into an ashtray. I remember the paw. The weather had turned sultry and the paw came from a bear that we could not get tanned or refrigerated quickly enough. The hide "slipped" and all we could save was the skull and two front paws

  In 1930, author John M. Holzworth wrote a beautiful book titled The Wild Grizzlies of Alaska. Holzworth's lifelong love affair with grizzlies permitted him to record the life style of Alaskan grizzlies with an accuracy that has withstood a generation of high-tech research. Holtzworth's is an admirable study and essential reading for anyone striving to understand the wild bears of Alaska.

  The observations recorded by Holzworth more than fifty years ago are accurate today. Nature, undisturbed by human fumblings is slow to change, and the bears live today much as they have since before man escaped his tree. I have found Holzworth's book useful in supporting my own grizzly observations, some of which follow.

  Grizzlies are engaging creatures. I often experience an intense desire to approach a grizzly and let him know that I am his friend and that I admire and respect him immensely. I would like to hug a grizzly.

  Such inclinations are controllable. Otherwise, I would not be available to write these words. Grizzlies are never your friends! The inexperienced can need that warning for grizzly bears can be handsome, humorous, lovable, and always interesting. But, friendly, they are not. They do not even socialize much among themselves, and if aroused they are ferocious fighters.

  Grizzlies are loners. Far from gregarious, bears meeting on a trail or at a fishing spot tend to ignore one another. They act like human strangers on a beach. Eye contact is avoided, and if close proximity occurs, recognition is in the form of a grunt or a bobbed head. Still strangers, each bear continues on its way.

  A sow grizzly stays devoted to her cubs (usually two) for two years. During that period she does not mate and nurses the cubs for most of that time. A bear cub can gain an incredible five pounds of body weight in a single day.

  The boar (old daddy bear) is gone, and if he showed up he would be absolutely unwelcome. In fact, if the sow did not protect her cubs, mature boars would probably maul and perhaps kill them. A sow with cubs will fight so savagely to protect her young that huge dominant boars turn away, apparently feeling the game not worthwhile.

  A sow grizzly will feed away from her cubs. In open country she may stray as far as a quarter of a mile, but the slightest yip from an endangered cub will bring her back in an attack so sudden and savage that it would cause any animal to turn aside.

  In time past, grizzly bears have been matched in pit battles with animals foreign to their experience. California grizzlies were matched against fighting bulls. Occasionally, a bull got a fatal horn into a bear, but he rarely got it out again; the bears killed the bulls.

  No doubt, rhino, Cape buffalo, or elephant would be too much for any bear, but that short listing about covers animals capable of defeating a mature grizzly bear.

  Grizzlies are not necessarily cruel, however. An example that comes to mind occurred in a dump outside Black Rapids where we used to park during the evening to watch bears and other animals.

  The dump was a big one created by the nearby intermittently used, military installation. We often saw caribou, buffalo (bison),
and black bear sharing the dump with an occasional moose. As long as we stayed within the vehicles, animals ignored us.

  One evening the animals began casually departing one after another until the last to unobtrusively leave was a sow black bear with her two yearling cubs. A few moments later, silent as ghosts, a large yellow grizzly with two small cubs appeared. The sow began scrounging in cans while the small cubs explored close to hand.

  One of the yearling blacks appeared at the dump edge and, unable to resist the good smells, he slipped into the dump and began sampling goodies.

  The mother grizzly appeared not to notice—until the black cub's head was deep in a can. Then, she crossed the dump with lightning-like speed and fetched the black cub a stiff swat on its chubby behind. The cub departed just as hard as it could run, uninjured, but sternly warned. Obviously, the big grizzly could have eliminated the black cub, but she chose just the correct amount of disciplining to teach without hurting.

  Unfortunately, there is an awful amount of silly bear information floating around. The foolish stuff clouds facts, and most people do not genuinely understand a bear's merits and failings. Study of any decent volume about bears would destroy many of the bear myths that have been developed by scores of irresponsible writers seeking to sell their work. But few within the general populace will ever read that kind of book.

  Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear with their bowls of porridge often initiate a child's silly bear information. Joel Chandler Harris, with his enjoyable but equally ludicrous "Brer Bear" perpetuates the folly of endowing bears with human attributes. Bears do not wear pants, cohabitate with foxes, or speak English with a folksy, southern accent.

  While such tales appear harmless—and are among children—they encourage delusions within our supposedly mature societies that bears should not be hunted because they too are just folks. Obviously, the same poor reasoning applies to the "Bambi Set" that sees deer as un-huntable and all of the overgrazing or upset natural balance arguments as only poor excuses to go out and slaughter the cuddly bears and darling little deer.

  The other side of the coin is equally distressing. Countless stories of ferocious bear attacks, hacked out by imaginative writers have so convinced people that bears of any species are mean devils that mere passage of an old, black honey bear causes consternation and fear among observers.

  Too many artists have portrayed attacks on trappers and hunters by huge bears that fight on their hind legs in modified John L. Sullivan stances. Created from whole cloth, the artists' imaginings are inaccurate and misleading.

  Fear of the great grizzly is not new, of course. Primitive people feared the bears. Armed only with simple weapons, primitive hunters had little chance against such adversaries.

  American Indians of many tribes thought of the bear as a distant relative and called him uncle or cousin, but until fairly recently science has understood little about grizzlies. During the last sixty years or so scholars and researchers have looked deeper. Now they know a lot more.

  Perhaps, not surprisingly, old and seasoned hunters already recognized much of what the scientists have cataloged and labeled, but for every fact the hunters thought they knew, a dozen fallacies also existed. Scientific method has been able to interest the people of our lands in the bears where hunters could not. Science has brushed aside many of the silly bear fables and is helping everyone to understand the grizzly.

  It might be pointed out here that the National Park Service's warnings to hikers to beware of bears, and their efforts to discourage hiking within grizzly country, is almost as much for the bears' benefit as it is for the hikers'. Grizzlies and people do not mix well, and if the bears are to exist, they must be granted solitude.

  Jerry Watson used a .375 H&H Magnum to drop this mighty brown bear at 6 paces on the Alaska Peninsula, just free of the water. Can you imagine attempting to haul this large an animal out of a pond for gutting and skinning?

  Here are a few details that will probably broaden most hunters' grizzly bear knowledge. Apply this information to the brown bear as well.

  Grizzlies roam mostly at night. During daylight, they sleep and forage. During the heat of a day a grizzly may be found resting atop or alongside a recent kill. Or, they may doze in the shade of deep woods.

  It is accidentally stumbling across and inadvertently startling a grizzly (especially a sow with cubs) that causes most bear attacks.

  A grizzly ranges over some twenty square miles. The Old Guide gave me that figure back in 1957. Scientific studies show it to be correct.

  Female grizzlies adopt stray young.

  Sows are tender and loving toward their cubs.

  Cubs typically gain 100 pounds a year.

  Grizzlies do not genuinely hibernate. They do den up during cold weather, but the grizzly may come out if there is a warm spell. A den is usually dug under a bank. It is lined with moss and needles.

  A grizzly has great self-respect which he defends.

  In his book, The Wild Grizzlies of Alaska, John Holzworth lists nineteen grizzly subspecies.

  Bears fresh out of winter sleep are ravenously hungry. They scratch for the roots of the snow lily and eat early grasses that grow below melting snow. They search snow banks for animals that died during winter and were preserved by the cold. The hungry grizzly smashes open logs to eat ants and grubs. He chases marmots fiercely.

  The first known literary reference to the grizzly in America is recorded in The Present State of Hudson Bays, by Edward Umfreyville in 1790.

  In 1795, the explorer Sir Alexander MacKenzie reported nine-inch tracks on the banks of the Peace River and commented that the Indians feared the great bear.

  During 1805-1806, Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the Pacific Ocean encountered numerous grizzly bears and reported many actions by the bears as well as the taking of grizzlies by members of their party.

  Different opinions on the meaning of grizzly as used in regard to bears are recorded. Some believe the word to come from "grizzle," which is an adaptation of the French word "grisel," and before that from the German "gris," meaning hoary or gray in color. Others, primarily the naturalist George Orr, who provided the scientific designation, seem to prefer the word derivation from the old English "grisan," which meant to shudder in terror or horror. He named the grizzly "Ursus Horriblis."

  Brackenridge, who wrote at length about grizzly bears, alleged that he used the journals of Lewis and Clark as his source. He seemed to have originated the belief that the grizzly was more fierce than a Bengal tiger or African lion and, as the enemy of man, actually thirsted for human blood. Such statements are not supported by the journals; although there were encounters with grizzlies, the few bear charges were provoked and humans won the encounters.

  When we talk about an eight-hundred-pound bear, many find it difficult to visualize just how large that is. This photo shows the print a big grizzly left in the sand. The print measured 12 1/2 inches long. The arrow points to the claw marks. A grizzly's claws are far out in front of his pad marks. A black bear's claws are very close to the pad.

  I once measured a bear of about (estimated) eight hundred pounds and attempted to reduce the bear's size to some generalities that might mean something to those who do not see grizzlies very often.

  For example, I found that my hands stretched to their fullest would just barely reach around the bear's wrist. I found that measurement highly impressive.

  Next, I measured the bear at the bicep. Those are some of the powerful muscles that toss one hundred-pound boulders about like beanbags when the bear is digging out marmots. The bear's arm measured the same as my waist. That is a lot of arm! The same bear's front claws were as long as my fingers.

  The head measured ten inches between its ears.

  Yet, the cleaned skull was only seven inches wide. The grizzly's long incisor teeth measured an inch and a half long. I put my arm inside the bear's mouth, and it fit quite easily. That bear's rear foot measured just shy of thirteen inches long. His front pa
w was six and one half inches wide.

  That bear squared eight feet.

  A grizzly has surprisingly small bones. A number of times I have returned to the scene of a grizzly kill and examined the bones left after the wolves, coyotes, and wolverines had finished cleaning them. The bone pile was always so small that I stopped to look closely. It seemed strange that such small bones could support such a large body.

  Bear color is startling. Although I have never seen a spotted grizzly, such a bear would not surprise me. While most grizzlies are some shade of brown, Jarvis Creek bears are often yellow. Grizzlies in the McKinley area are often a grizzled gray that fits the "grizzly" description, and a bleached blonde coloration is regularly found on the north slope of the Brooks Range.

  I have mistaken small grizzlies for large black bears, especially where dark brown fur is common. Of course, a big, mature grizzly bear is unmistakable, but that it because of his shape, not his coloration.

  This is my bear-in-the-brush gun, a shortened 12-gauge shotgun.

  Bear populations vary dramatically across Alaska, and that is of direct interest to the grizzly hunter. An aerial survey of the North Slope sighted an average of only two bears per square mile. That is in North Slope bear country and does not include improbable terrain. The opposite extreme disclosed 129 brown bears within one square mile along the Gulf of Alaska.

  If I were reincarnated and had a choice, I might return to earth as a brown or grizzly bear. I would enjoy the gourmandizing in blueberry patches, munching on salmon, and pulling down an occasional animal. The long winter's sleep would be pleasant with bear dreams, and having no natural enemies, there would be few tensions or worries.

  I think I might choose to live in Denali Park where the rangers would watch but not interfere. Life would be good, with one exception. Old age in the animal kingdom is never pleasant, and death is usually a time of pain and misery. But, being a bear, I would not know the fate in store for me, and so I would not brood about it. Ah, that we humans could be so fortunate.