Look at the cloud-draped mountains, the small buck prancing through our backyard, or the eagle standing watch in the tree. Did you see the brightly colored puffin, or the sea otter lounging on her back, her baby nestled on her stomach? Did you notice the seals hauled out on the beach, two of them bloody from fighting, or did you stay up late one night to watch a beautiful Alaska sunset?
As many of you know, my husband and I own a small wilderness lodge on Kodiak Island, Alaska. In the summer, we take guests wildlife viewing and sportfishing, with an emphasis on watching Kodiak bears in their natural habitat. One thing I have noticed over the years is the guests who have the best time at our lodge are those who see everything. They are the ones who show me their photos at the end of the day and are embarrassed by all the images of rock formations they snapped. They are also the ones who admit they didn’t take any pictures of the whales because they just wanted to look, listen, smell, and feel the experience instead of watching it all through their camera’s viewfinder.
The guest who sheds a few tears when she talks about a bear splashing in the water twenty feet from her and the guest who was thrilled by watching through binoculars from a distance as a sow interacted with her three cubs are the guests we will see again. They will return in a year or two or ten because they won’t be able to get the sights, the sounds, or the smells of this beautiful place out of their heads.
Nearly 75% of our guests this summer were returnees, and many of them have been to our lodge multiple times. They’ve been here when the bear viewing was spectacular, and when bears were scarce. They’ve been here during great fishing years and years when the fish were slow to bite, and some years they’ve seen whales, while other years they haven’t. They’ve braved storms and basked in the sun. They’ve seen it all, but they keep returning because they have never focused on just one thing and lost sight of the big picture.
One guest this summer who has been here multiple times told me she and her husband have never had a rainy day here. I’m sure she must be either extremely lucky or mistaken, but I love that she and her husband only remember the sunshine!
No matter where you travel or what adventure you seek, if you narrow your focus too much, you will miss what is right in front of you. Instead, look around, and you might be surprised by what you see. The things that please you most and makes you fall in love with a destination could be something entirely different from what you were expecting.
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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Escaping from your life is the only true way to relax, but escape is not easy in the 21st century. You might be lounging on a beach in Aruba, but I bet your cell phone is keeping your rum punch company on the table next to your chair, and you remind yourself you need to return to your room an hour before dinner to put the finishing touches on the report you’ve promised your boss. You are enjoying a fun vacation, but you have not escaped.
As many of you know, my husband and I own a small bear-viewing, sportfishing, and hunting lodge on Kodiak Island in Alaska. Our lodge is located seventy air miles from the town of Kodiak in the heart of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. No roads cross the island, so the only way to reach us is by floatplane or an eight-hour boat ride through rough seas. We don’t have cell phone service, and although we do have internet, it is satellite internet with a strict and stingy data limit.
We tell our guests they can send and receive e-mails but nothing else, and please, no photos or videos. Turn off the apps and disable location services while you are at our lodge.
Our guests look at us with wide eyes. How could we ask them to disconnect from their lives? How will they survive if they can’t watch the news on their phones, follow the twists and turns of the stock market, or catch the latest baseball scores? More importantly, how many YouTube cat videos will they miss during a five-day stay with us?
We often catch a guest cheating at the beginning of her stay when she thinks we won’t notice her texting while she holds her phone under the edge of the dining room table. Gradually, though, we see change. The iPhone, held in a death grip when a guest climbed from the floatplane, now only makes appearances after we’ve returned from our daily adventure. Computer screens that were earlier filled with business documents or e-mails are now occupied by wildlife photos from the day’s safari.
The group of six strangers who on the first evening they arrived, barely looked up from their devices to converse, now linger over the dinner table discussing the day’s excitement and laughing about the huge Kodiak bear they watched chase a salmon through a small stream.
“I thought he was running straight for Sid,” Cathy from Indianapolis says.
“Right,” Sid from Melbourne replies. “I nearly needed to change my trousers.”
The laughter grows to a roar, and then slowly, the conversation drifts to families and other far-away vacations. No one has glanced at a cellphone in hours.
Guests often say their stay with us was the best vacation of their lives. I would like to believe we are completely responsible for their excellent holiday, but I know it’s not the truth. They had fun and relaxed because they escaped their lives for a few days.
On day one, our guests ask if we’ve heard the news of the day. What’s happening in the world? By day four, they ask what time the tide will be high and what river we plan to hike the following day. They excitedly tell us about the young buck that walked up to the steps of their cabin or the eagle they watched pluck a salmon from the cove in front of our lodge. After only a few days, our guests have unplugged and are beginning to follow the rhythms of our world.
I watch with sadness as our guests wait for the floatplane to take them back to Kodiak and their lives. The chatter dies, and the phones emerge from their hiding places.
I love my job as a guide and naturalist, and I enjoy sharing my world in the Alaska wilderness with others, but I feel our trips are only successful when I see our guests relax. I know if a guest can put down his phone and escape his world for a few days, he will have the best vacation of his life. It’s not about us; it’s about the escape.
The plane lands, and our departing guests wait for the new flock to disembark before they can load their gear onto the plane. As they pass each other on the dock and exchange pleasantries, one of the departing guests looks at the new arrivals and smirks. “You can put away those phones,” he says. “You won’t need them here.”
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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Last week, I discussed early studies on Kodiak bears, and this week I want to continue by talking about more recent research, including some troubling genetic studies.
A 1996 genetic study questioned whether Kodiak bears should be considered a separate subspecies from other Alaskan brown bears. A 1998 study on the genetic diversity of North American brown bears indicated genetic diversity among Kodiak bears is much less than it is for other populations of North American brown bears. Several of the bears sampled on Kodiak had identical genotypes. A study by Paetkau and colleagues further explored the genetic isolation of Kodiak bears from other Alaskan brown bear populations.
A 2006 report for the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge illustrates that Kodiak bears have extremely low levels of genetic variation at neutral nuclear microsatellite markers. The level of genetic variation in Kodiak bears is much lower than the variation found in any other brown bear population. Furthermore, this low level of variation is not only found at neutral markers but also in nuclear-functional genes. While the Kodiak bear population is presently healthy, this low genetic variability makes this population susceptible to novel parasites and pathogens that may somehow reach Kodiak and infect bears.
Bear research is ongoing on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. Yearly intensive aerial surveys yield population counts, and aerial stream surveys determine the number of bears on certain streams and study the population profiles of the bears on each stream (the percentage of single bears, sows with newborn cubs, sows with one-year-old cubs, etc.).
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is studying the population characteristics and habitat use of brown bears on Afognak Island since the movements and ecology of Afognak bears are not well-understood.
In 2010, William Leacock headed a two-year project near Karluk Lake on the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge to collar and track several Kodiak bears. Each bear in the study was fitted with a GPS collar to broadcast the bear’s location at hourly intervals. A Refuge pilot with an antenna attached to the wings of his plane flew over the bears and picked up the GPS signal from the radio collars of each bear being tracked. A crew member then downloaded these GPS points onto a laptop. From this information, the researchers were able to study the detailed movements of each bear and record the preferred habitat, food preferences, and bedding choices of each animal. Once the GPS data were collected in the field, volunteers hiked to the exact locations where each bear had been and recorded the types of food plants available in the area as well as other pertinent information. The goal of this study was to quantify behavioral responses of Kodiak bears to resources that vary in time and space (such as salmon runs and berry production). Dr. Leacock and his associates also studied how fluctuations in abundance of salmon at various streams near Karluk Lake influenced bear movements and exploitation of those streams.
Next week, I’ll discuss a new study that is both fascinating and controversial. I hope to invite the researchers on the study as well as guides who have been watching bears and their behavior for years to read my post and comment on it. Maybe I can get a lively discussion started! Be sure to check back often.
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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How have deer and goat hunters and bear viewers impacted Kodiak bears? This is my third and final post about the complex relationship between humans and bears on Kodiak Island.
Deer Hunters
In the early 1980s, the Sitka black-tailed deer population exploded throughout the Kodiak Archipelago. As a result, the length of the deer-hunting season as well as the bag limit for deer increased. For several years, each hunter was allowed to shoot seven deer. Bears quickly adapted to this new, easy source of food, and conflicts between bears and deer hunters increased in frequency. A questionnaire filled out by hunters indicated 21% of all deer hunters had threatening encounters with bears, and as many as 26% lost deer meat to bears. A heightened emphasis on hunter education and ways to avoid bear encounters has helped solve this problem. Today, the bag limit is three deer per hunter, but bear/deer-hunter encounters still occur.
Goat Hunters
The mountain goat population on Kodiak has also rapidly increased within the last decade, and in many areas, permits for hunting mountain goats have gone from a restricted drawing to an open registration. Several goat-hunter/bear conflicts have occurred in the last few years, but goat habitat is difficult to reach, so there are fewer goat hunters than deer hunters and therefore fewer goat-hunter/bear conflicts than deer-hunter/bear conflicts.
Bear Viewers and Photographers
The interest in bear viewing and photography has steadily increased on Kodiak since the 1980’s. The Refuge classifies bear viewing as “non-consumptive” use as opposed to “consumptive” use by bear hunters, but “non-consumptive” is a misleading term. Bear viewers can be very disruptive to bears and the habitat, and their impact or potential impact is not easy to measure or predict. The challenge the Refuge has faced in recent years is to learn how to limit the impact of non-consumptive users on bears while allowing as many people as possible the thrill of watching a Kodiak bear in its natural habitat.
Bear viewing on Kodiak occurs almost exclusively in the summer months when bears are concentrated on streams or in shallow, saltwater areas at the heads of bays, feeding on salmon. Bears must consume large amounts of protein and fat in the summer to sustain them through the following winter’s hibernation. It is especially critical for sows with cubs and pregnant sows to receive adequate nutrition.
Bear viewers can force bears away from prime feeding areas. This impact is difficult to measure, and it is likely bear viewers or photographers will not even realize they are impacting the bears, because some bears are more tolerant of humans and will stay and feed in their presence, while other bears will leave the area as soon as they detect humans nearby. These less-tolerant bears may then be forced to fish in less-productive areas or at different times of the day when tides and light conditions are not as good.
Management Decisions
Biologists are now studying and trying to understand the impacts bear viewers, sport fishermen, rafters, and hikers have on Kodiak bears, and they hope to use what they learn to develop regulations to manage these impacts on Kodiak bears and their habitat.
Over the next few weeks, I plan to cover past and present scientific research on bears, including one recent controversial study.
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
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This year, I struggled through a difficult spring into a terrible summer. It often seems bad things happen in bunches, and this has been my year for one of those bunches. In April, I experienced a painful outbreak of shingles. I live a floatplane ride away from a doctor, and it costs approximately $2000 for me to make a quick visit to my family practitioner, not counting the cost of the doctor’s appointment. I have to charter a plane both ways, rent a car, and usually stay in a hotel for at least one or two nights. When I face such an expense, I must stop to consider whether a trip to the doctor is really necessary. When I broke out with shingles, I decided I could not get to the doctor in time for the anti-viral medication to be effective, so I felt there was nothing a doctor could do for me.
The shingles virus raged inside my body. At times, I felt as if I had broken a rib and at others I swore I had pneumonia or was suffering a heart attack. The stabbing pain in my side was the most intense, and it was relentless. At night, I could find no position in bed where my body did not scream in pain, and I usually curled up in a chair for an hour or two of restless sleep. I am certain those of you who have had shingles understand the pain I am describing.
I foolishly thought once the blisters from the rash healed, I would recover. Unfortunately, though, the pain only seemed to get worse. In late May, we took our boat to town to have work done on it, and I saw my doctor who prescribed a medication to help numb the nerve pain. She also informed me the pain could last for several months or years, and I decided I’d better learn to live with it. Luckily, the medication did help, and the pain lessened.
In late June, I flew back to Kodiak to help my husband bring our boat home, an eight-to-12-hour voyage, depending on the weather. When we got back to our lodge, we were very busy getting things ready for our summer, tourism season. We are building a new cabin, so I spent my days painting walls. I also painted the long board-walk skirting our cabins, and I did yardwork and tended my garden. I could tell something wasn’t right with me, though. After we returned from town, I felt tired and blamed it on the very busy two days I’d spent in Kodiak. Then, I began to notice how difficult it was for me to walk up the hill from our dock. A few days later, I was startled when I could barely climb the stairs to a storage room. My left leg refused to work. Soon, I noticed weakness in my right leg and both arms. When I began to feel intense tingling in my hands and feet, I knew I had a neurological issue.
At first, I denied I had a medical problem; the last thing I wanted to do was fly back to Kodiak. Finally, two days before our summer season was to begin, I had to be helped onto a floatplane for the ride to town. My plan was to see the doctor and fly home the same afternoon.
I at first stumped the doctors in Kodiak, but when they consulted a neurologist in Anchorage, they came up with a possible diagnosis of Guillain Barré Syndrome (GBS). They explained to me that my immune system got confused while fighting shingles and turned on my nervous system, stripping myelin from my nerve sheath. GBS can be dangerous and in an extreme case, an individual has difficulty walking in the morning, and by afternoon, her entire body, including her chest wall, is paralyzed, forcing her to be on a ventilator just to survive.
Doctors in Kodiak wanted to medevac me to Anchorage, but I assured them I could get myself on the jet to Anchorage and to the hospital once I arrived there. Further tests at Providence Hospital in Anchorage confirmed I had GBS, and the neurologist recommended an infusion of immunoglobulins each day for the next five days. Meanwhile, physical therapy could work with me to determine if my symptoms were getting better, staying the same, or worsening. The usual progression for GBS is to worsen rapidly and then stay steady for a period before slowly improving. The neurologist explained it would take a year for me to recover, but nearly everyone who has GBS recovers completely.
I felt thankful to receive treatment and to know I had something from which I would recover. I hated not to be home to finish the hundred little chores I wanted to do before our summer season began, but I knew my husband, Mike, and our brilliant cook, Mary, would have no problem starting our summer season without me. I especially regretted I would not be at our lodge to greet our new, young camp helper, Emily, but Mary assured me she would orientate Emily, and they would do fine.
I sat back in the hospital bed and watched the infusion drip down the tube and through the needle into my veins. All would be okay; I would get through this. I reminded myself repeatedly that it could be worse. And then it did get worse – much worse.
On my last day in the hospital, I decided to call my brother, Russell, his wife, Melanie, and their son, Nick, in Kansas. I am very close to my brother, but we usually communicate by e-mail, mainly since it is nearly impossible for me to make a telephone call from our remote lodge. I decided to call him from the hospital, though, because I knew he was worried about my condition, and I wanted to assure him I was recovering and would be okay. I reached Russell and had a nice conversation with him and his family. Then, according to Melanie, after we disconnected, Russell decided to mow the grass in 100⁰ heat.
Melanie called me back at the hospital just as the nurse was starting my final infusion and gave me the horrible news. Russell had suffered a heart attack and had died while mowing the grass, little more than an hour after I had talked to him.
My world crashed down around me at the news of my brother’s death. I couldn’t believe such a strong force and one of the most important people in my life could be gone, and I stupidly kept thinking he couldn’t possibly be dead because I just had talked to him. I worried about Melanie and Nick and what they would do without Russell. I know Melanie is strong, but they were a unit, and I couldn’t imagine her without him.
The following morning, the doctor released me from the hospital. I took a cab to the airport and made my way from the entrance to my gate, shocked by how slowly I walked and exhausted I felt. It had been too foggy for planes to land in Kodiak for the past two days, but I was lucky, and the fog lifted just before my flight.
In Kodiak, a van whisked me to Andrew Airways, and soon, I was in a floatplane flying home. I felt numb and very tired as we skirted emerald mountains, plunging waterfalls, and deep valleys formed by glaciers and cut by rivers. All I cared about was getting home and curling into a ball with my cat to lick my wounds. I knew I would cherish my last conversation with my brother and would always be grateful that for whatever reason, I had placed the call to him only an hour before he died. I knew I wasn’t well enough to be much help to Mike on our summer trips. My usual job is to work on the boat as a wildlife-viewing and sport-fishing guide, but now I wasn’t even sure I could crawl onto the boat. One day at a time, I told myself. I would improve.
As we circled our lodge and came in low for a landing, I looked at our dock and nearly burst into tears. There stood Mike, Mary, and Emily, and Mary held a beautifully designed “welcome home” sign for me. With their help, I stepped off the plane and hugged each of them. Even Emily, who didn’t yet know me, gave me a big hug. I’ve never been so happy to be home in my life, and yes, my cat allowed me to cuddle beside her while she licked my hand, and I took a nap.
Next week I will tell you about what my life has been like since I returned home, and I promise that post will be full of stories about healing, wildlife and wonderful guests.
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One of the main reasons Kodiak bears grow so much larger than inland grizzly bears is due to the abundance of food on Kodiak. Not only can bears feast on protein-rich salmon in the summer, but the archipelago is loaded with nutritious vegetation and sugar-packed berries. A brown bear’s jaws have powerful muscles and teeth that have evolved to adapt to an omnivorous diet of both plants and animals. Kodiak bears are opportunistic feeders. They eat roots, berries, grasses, sedges, wildflowers, wild celery, and other plants, as well as rodents, insects, large mammals (including deer and mountain goats), fish, carrion, and yes, unfortunately, garbage and pet food.
Bears’ stomachs contract during hibernation, and when they first leave their dens, they aren’t hungry. They eat little at first, concentrating on emerging plants and their roots. As the spring progresses, Kodiak bears can be seen feeding in grassy meadows and look much like grazing cattle. Their diet switches to salmon in the summer months, when they chase and catch fish in shallow streams or on the tidal flats near the heads of the deep, narrow bays on Kodiak. Bears also consume dead salmon that have washed up on shore. When the salmonberries, elderberries, crowberries, blueberries and other berries begin to ripen on Kodiak in late July and August, most bears spend at least part of their day in berry thickets, pulling the berries from the bushes with their lips and mouths. Salmon provide bears with fat and protein, and berries are high in natural sugars, all of which are important for building up a fat reserve for hibernation. As fall progresses, bears increase their consumption of salmon and berries as they strive to build up their fat layer before entering the den for hibernation. A diet rich in berries has its downside, though. Bears are one of the few wild animals susceptible to tooth decay. Abscessed teeth are not uncommon, and rotten teeth may affect the bear’s ability to eat and may even lead to starvation.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of bear viewing is watching a bear chase and catch a salmon. Sows teach their cubs how to fish and will often corral a salmon toward the cub in shallow water and then encourage the cub to chase the fish. A sow with newborn cubs that are still nursing will only allow her cubs to eat a small part of her catch after she has had her fill because she needs the extra protein to produce the milk to nurse her cubs, and the cubs are receiving most of their nutrition from her. As the cubs age, they nurse less, and the sow shares more of her catch with them. Finally, when they are old enough, she encourages them to fish on their own, and by the time the cubs are two years old, they can usually chase and catch a few salmon without the help of their mother.
Fishing is a skill bears learn with much practice over time, so young bears are often clumsy fishermen. A sub-adult bear may gallop back and forth in a stream for thirty minutes without successfully landing a salmon, while an older bear walks slowly downstream and pounces on a passing salmon with little effort. A bear may also develop his own unique fishing technique. One bear may sit on a fallen log hanging low over a stream and attempt to grab fish as they swim past. A second bear may “submarine” by dunking his head under water to watch for fish, and a third may obtain his fish by chasing another bear and stealing that bear’s catch.
ike and I just returned home after six weeks on the road. We had a great vacation, but as always, I am happy to be home, despite the cold weather and frozen waterline.
Spring is still two months away in this area of the world, and we’ve had a tough winter here. After several mild winters, the black-tailed deer population on the island had exploded, but many deer did not survive the freezing temperatures this winter. I haven’t had a chance to go hiking yet to see with my own eyes how bad the winter kill was, but I’ve heard it was bad. The cycling of deer populations is normal, of course, and the deer population here will recover, but I find it difficult to watch animals starve to death and die from exposure.
I was thrilled to get a dose of sunshine and heat on our vacation. We went sailing with friends in the British Virgin Islands, and then Mike and I traveled further south to Bonaire where we snorkeled and dived and enjoyed wearing fewer layers of clothes than normal. Besides spending time with friends, the best part of the vacation for me was that I could snorkel nearly every day. I studied marine and fisheries biology in college, and I have always been fascinated by the underwater world. I could float above a coral reef all day long, watching the interactions between the fish and marine invertebrates in that busy community. The area surrounding Bonaire is a protected marine park, so the coral is healthy, and the tropical fish thrive. I would grab my mask and fins, jump off the dock at our hotel, and instantly be immersed in a gorgeous, underwater world. Getting to Bonaire was not easy, but it was well worth the hassle to enjoy that little piece of paradise.
During the many, long plane rides and mornings on the sailboat on our trip, I had time to edit the manuscript of my latest novel. With each pass, I am polishing it into the story I want it to be. I think most authors would tell you editing is the least fun part of the writing process, but editing is necessary and can’t be avoided. In addition to questioning every comma and semicolon and trying to remember whether a character’s eyes are blue or brown, I worry that the plot moves forward in a logical progression. Will the reader be surprised or disappointed? Are the characters believable? Have I provided enough description or too much description? My working manuscript is long, so I’m concerned I need to cut some scenes. Luckily, I will get help answering these questions. Once I have the manuscript as perfect as I can make it, I will send it to a professional editor who will look at it line by line and then step back and consider the manuscript as a whole. A few friends have also volunteered to read the manuscript, and my publisher will read through it and give me his thoughts.
I also want to ask for your help with my manuscript. In a few weeks, I will post a few excerpts from the book, and I encourage you to let me know what you think, good or bad. I would much rather have the feedback now than read it in a review on Amazon once the book has been published!
Finally, I have a gift for my blog readers. Click on the cover of my book below and receive a free coupon for an e-book of my novel, Murder Over Kodiak. When you click on the link you will be taken to a site provided by my publisher, and you will need to register to download the book, but there is no catch. The book is yours free!
As many of you know, I write a monthly newsletter about crime and mysteries in Alaska. I think of spring as the start of the new season for my newsletter, and I have several interesting topics I plan to cover over the next months. My newsletters are free, and you can always unsubscribe if they aren’t for you. If you think you would be interested in my newsletters, you can sign up here.
A Kodiak bear’s coat may range from dark brown to nearly blonde. Bears are typically darker in the fall when they begin growing their winter coat, and older bears are often darker than younger bears, but these are just generalizations. One cub from a litter may be light, while his brother is dark brown.
Cubs often have a natal collar, a white band around the neck and shoulder. Some cubs have no natal collar, and others have a collar that is bright and distinct. This band gradually fades over time, and it has usually disappeared by the age of three, but occasionally, you will see a four-or-five-year-old bear that still has remnants of a collar.
A bear’s fur is an excellent insulator. It is dense and oily, keeping the bear warm and preventing water from penetrating. The fur consists of two types of hair, the “guard hair” and the “under-fur.” Bears shed both the guard hair and underfur annually. In the summer, Kodiak bears often appear shaggy and matted. The bear in the photo below looks as if she is sporting dreadlocks. To help remove their fur, bears rub against trees and rocks, often standing on their hind legs, backing up to a tree and rubbing up and down. It is humorous to watch a bear “scratch his back” in this manner. While the old coat is shedding, a new coat is growing, and by September on Kodiak, most bears appear darker in color and well-groomed. The old, loose fur is gone, and only the new fur remains.
CLAWS
Brown bears have non-retractable claws up to four-inches long. The claws of young bears are typically dark brown and then lighten with age. Although some young bears have light-colored claws, beautiful, pearly-white claws are usually seen on an old sow or boar. Look at the photos and notice the difference in claw coloration between the sub-adult bear and the old sow.
Brown bears use their claws to defend themselves and fight with other bears, but Kodiak bears primarily use their claws to dig for roots and other food and gripping food. Even though their claws look large and clumsy to us, they are quite dexterous and capable of manipulating small objects. Kodiak cubs use their claws to climb trees, but adult brown bears are poor climbers due to their body weight and the structure of their claws. It is not uncommon to see a sow send her small cubs up a tree if she senses danger, and they stay in the tree until she vocalizes the signal that it is safe for them to come down.
Bears, like all animals, depend on their senses to survive. They use their senses for many things, but especially to find food and detect possible threats. A bear’s sense of smell is its most important sense. A brown bear’s sense of smell is three to four times more sensitive than that of an average dog, and it is difficult for humans with our relatively poor sense of smell to comprehend what this means and how much a bear depends on this sense. A bear uses his nose to find food, locate a mate, and avoid danger. A bear downwind from you may smell your presence and run from you while you are still several hundred yards away from him.
A bear’s second most important sense is hearing. Brown bears have relatively small ears, but they can detect noises at a great distance. A bear can hear the click of a camera shutter over the sound of the wind, crashing waves, or a swiftly running river.
For a long time, biologists believed bears had poor eyesight, but scientific research has shown a bear’s eyesight is similar to that of a human’s. Bears are not nearsighted as was once believed, and they can see colors. Brown bears often stand on their hind legs to increase their sight distance and get a better look at an object. It is not a sign of aggression when a bear stands on its hind legs; the bear is just trying to gain more sensory input.
The important thing to remember is a bear does not use each one of these senses independent of the others. If a bear sees something unfamiliar in the distance, such as a person, a boat, or even another bear, he may stand on his hind legs to get a better look, raise his nose to attempt to smell the interloper, and pick up his ears to try to ascertain unfamiliar sounds. If he still cannot determine what the object is, he may approach it for a closer look or circle downwind from the object so that he can smell it better.
Next week, I’ll write about a bear’s fur and claws. Does a bear’s fur change with age? Why are some Kodiak bears blonde and others a chocolate-colored? What is the white ring some cubs have around their neck? How do the claws change with age?
If you haven’t signed up yet for my free monthly newsletter, don’t wait. You won’t want to miss this month’s newsletter about crime and justice during the Alaska Gold Rush written by Alaska historian and author Steven Levi.
Summer Friends at Amook Pass is a post by my friend, Marcia Messier. I love this humorous story about her animal encounters while she worked for us at Munsey’s Bear Camp. What Marcia doesn’t tell you in this piece is that I named our goat visitor Marcie because the goat’s daring trip each summer from the mountains to the ocean, reminded me of Marcia’s adventurous spirit. Prepare to smile as you read about Marcia’s adventures!
During the summer months at Amook Pass, the animals were my friends. That sounds a bit corny, but they were amusing, startling, and comforting, all that friends should be. I looked forward and anticipated who might stop by for a visit during my busy days.
House Animals
I was privileged to know Gizzy, Fletcher, Elsie, and Olive during my summers at Munsey’s Bear Camp. They were my very best animal friends. I thought it was interesting that Gizzy and Olive had similar personalities as did Fletcher and Elsie; even though, they had never met. Gizzy and Olive were the sweet ladies, soft-spoken, polite, accommodating for a photo, well groomed, and perhaps just a little bit shy of visitors. Fletcher and Elsie, on the other hand, were true wilderness cats. Fletcher was getting along in years when I first met him, but he told me many a hair-raising tale about his hunting skills as a younger gentleman. Elsie was in her prime, and she loved to stalk bears for days on end. Many a time as Robin and I were mourning her early demise, we would hear Mike yell, “Elsie’s back!”, and there she would be, dragging herself through the door, ragged, dirty and ravenously hungry after her latest adventure.
Fletcher and Elsie loved to hunt voles, the tiny mouse-like creatures close to the bottom of the Kodiak food chain. They must be a very tasty snack because twice daily I’d find their tiny blue and green left-over parts deposited on the front door step. I used to tell myself they were loving gifts, but then again, whoever left the pieces always seemed slightly amused when I reached down to pluck the bits off the doorstep while making slight gagging sounds.
Freddie the Weasel became a daily late-afternoon house guest. Maybe the sound of the old generator starting up interrupted his afternoon nap. He’d shoot in the backdoor, zip through the kitchen and take cover under the couch in the living room to watch and learn about life in the big house. At first, I jumped and shrieked thinking he must be some kind of Kodiak rat, but later in the day, Robin calmly explained about weasels.
Gizzy and Fletcher were still with us then but getting along in years. They knew their limitations, so they decided to pretend Freddie was just a figment of my over-active imagination. Not wanting to insult them, I went along with the game and soon we all looked forward to Freddie’s daily antics. I knew when he heard the boat motoring up to the mooring; I would see the tail end of Freddie flip out the front door.
Yard Animals
Early in the summer season, the female Sitka deer would bring their fawns into the yard to nibble the bright green salad-like greens growing around the cabins. Sometimes there would be twins, and I would think happy thoughts as I watched them through the kitchen window while preparing breakfast.
One day I came nose to nose with a deer! I was hurrying to the cabin with a load of fresh laundry, and we met coming around the corner at the same instant. We were both startled and just stared dumbfounded into each other’s eyes for a moment. I’m not sure who moved first, but a hunter later told me I was lucky it hadn’t given me a good kick in the shins before it bolted off! I guess that happens, but ours was a peaceful meeting, and I will forever remember that instant.
I live in Arizona, so the first time I saw a fox on the pathway, I excitedly reported to Mike I had seen a coyote in the yard that day. Laughing, he looked at me like I was nuts and said, “There are no coyotes on Kodiak Island!”. I felt a little foolish but still maintain at a distance, a big healthy Kodiak fox looks very much like a thin Arizona coyote in the summertime!
I’ve seen Bald Eagles before, but in Arizona, they are a special sighting. On Kodiak, they are commonplace, and I was thrilled to see a nesting pair close to camp. On my mid-day break, if the weather was good, I’d sit in a lawn chair facing the bay and watch the eagles fish. It was entertaining; an eagle would fly over the water and scope out a fish, and then in an amazing feet-first dive, catch the fish in its talons. After this, it was usually impossible to get airborne once again, so it had to row itself and the fish, still clutched in its talons, ashore with its wings. There, after expending so much energy, it would devour the fish and do it all over again.
More than once, on a nice day, while taking a siesta in the hammock, enjoying the warm sun on my face, I’d hear and feel the strong wing beats of a very large bird flying close over me, and I’d know I had been checked out by a Bald Eagle!
Some of you may have read my “Encounter” with a bear. I was walking along the path up to the guest cottage one afternoon, my mind far away, when I heard a “horse” snort. The sound brought me back to the present in a flash, and I must say, I have never confused the sound of a bear with that of a horse again!
A secret I’d like to reveal is Mike used to make a bear playground out of old red mooring buoys a distance up behind the generator shed. I heard him and Robin laughing once about how much fun the bears had rolling, tossing and chewing these old red buoys. I never did venture up past the generator shed and burn barrel. Wearing a red jacket, I didn’t want the bears to make a mistake. I did wonder if mother bears warned their cubs, “never go near that playground as there is a dangerous human there who makes frightening loud, smoky blasts come out of the shed and soon after makes fire leap high into the sky out of a barrel!” Thinking back, I was probably quite safe.
Marcie was my favorite yard animal. One warm July day, we spotted a solitary mountain goat strolling along the beach near camp. Mike and Robin reported this was indeed a rare sighting. We couldn’t help ourselves, Robin christened her Marcie, and we began to speculate about her life and why she was here on our beach. She was a rebel. Marcie was tired of billies, she had too many youngsters to raise, and the constant stress of all those steep icy mountain ledges was wearing her down. Maybe she had arthritis in her knees. Maybe she just wanted a vacation at the beach! We happily welcomed her, and for a number of years, she would appear for her annual July vacation at Munsey’s Bear Camp. One year she didn’t arrive. We looked and looked, but no Marcie. Right away we decided, instead of feeling sad, we would celebrate her life. We had a toast to Marcie, how brave she was to break away from the herd and dare to be different!
Sea Animals
The sea otter is a zen-like sight floating on its back, paws pressed together as if in meditation pose. It’s a sweet maternal picture with mom floating on her back and a tiny baby resting on her belly. And how clever of them to use tools! They often are observed with a rock balanced on their belly, happily cracking open clams for lunch. Brilliant!
At Munsey’s Bear Camp, I often saw sea otters floating in the cove in front of the lodge, and the sea otters kept to themselves. Their cousins the river otters, however, were a different matter. A family of river otters took up residence under the dock. This dock was now their home, and no one else was welcome. The dock became their dining room and their toilet. A mop had to be stationed on the dock so that the horrid stinky mess could be swabbed away. The mop could also be used as a defensive tool.
River Otter
With guests arriving and departing from the dock every five days, caution had to be observed. One day stands out in my mind. It was a beautiful, sunny Kodiak day, and we were all on deck welcoming new guests. As they were embarking from the float plane and luggage was being handed down, I took a step back and slid on an unseen mound of otter poo. I wanted to vaporize as I fell on my backside in an ungraceful plop! Afterward, we laughed about this incident, but I never forgot, and every time I saw a sweet little otter posing for pictures, I saw two little horns poking up through the top of its head.
I grew up near Cape Cod where everyone loved to fish. I didn’t. To me, the whole process from baiting the hook, to dragging the poor thing out of its natural habitat with a hook in its mouth, to butchering it, to stinking up the house with fried fish was cruel and disgusting. Fast forward 40 years and I’m a cook in a fishing camp. I politely listened and smiled at all the fish stories and quietly cooked the fish, wondering what all the commotion was about. One day my perception changed. Robin and Mike asked me if I’d like to go out on the boat with them for the day. We had only one guest, and it was a great day to get out of the house. Yes, I wanted to go! Like a good sport, I purchased my fishing license, and away we went. Mike anchored in a pretty cove, and as I sat down in the deck chair ready to enjoy the sunshine, Robin stuck a baited pole in my hands and showed me where to drop the line. Still not paying much attention, suddenly the pole was nearly yanked out of my hands, and the line was whizzing off the reel. “What’s going on?”, I hollered. Robin and Mike replied, “You’ve caught a fish.” They proceeded to give me instructions. Suddenly, the scenario was hilarious, like an old re-run of “I Love Lucy.” I couldn’t stop laughing which in turn made my arms weak and unable to reel in the line. In a second, Robin strapped a belt-like thing around me to support the fishing pole so that I could reel. Now we are all laughing hard, but with perseverance and aching arms, the fish finally emerged from the deep. I was leaned over the rail gasping in amazement at “my halibut” when all of sudden, Mike, with an expert jerk of his pliers, freed my fish from the hook and off it swam! Hey! At that moment I was totally conflicted. On the one hand, I proudly wanted to bring my halibut home for supper, but on the other, I wished it well and was happy it was able to live another day in Uyak Bay.
As many of you know, my husband and I own a small wilderness lodge on Kodiak Island, Alaska. In the summer, we take guests wildlife viewing and sportfishing, with an emphasis on watching Kodiak bears in their natural habitat. One thing I have noticed over the years is the guests who have the best time at our lodge are those who see everything. They are 
the ones who show me their photos at the end of the day and are embarrassed by all the images of rock formations they snapped. They are also the ones who admit they didn’t take any pictures of the whales because they just wanted to look, listen, smell, and feel the experience instead of watching it all through their camera’s viewfinder.
No matter where you travel or what adventure you seek, if you narrow your focus too much, you will miss what is right in front of you. Instead, look around, and you might be surprised by what you see. The things that please you most and makes you fall in love with a destination could be something entirely different from what you were expecting.
Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.
Deer Hunters
decade, and in many areas, permits for hunting mountain goats have gone from a restricted drawing to an open registration. Several goat-hunter/bear conflicts have occurred in the last few years, but goat habitat is difficult to reach, so there are fewer goat hunters than deer hunters and therefore fewer goat-hunter/bear conflicts than deer-hunter/bear conflicts.
are typically dark brown and then lighten with age. Although some young bears have light-colored claws, beautiful, pearly-white claws are usually seen on an old sow or boar. Look at the photos and notice the difference in claw coloration between the sub-adult bear and the old sow.
