Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
On Sunday afternoon, just before 3pm, an adolescent black bear walked into the Breeze Inn, located near the Boat Harbor in Seward. The bear entered the lobby through the back door, which was propped open while housekeeping and maintenance was being done on the nearby hotel rooms. The bear then walked down the long hallway, past meeting rooms and entered the main lobby of the hotel, where it wandered around, smelling the stuffed bear that is prominently displayed, according to Carly Coats, who works at the Breeze Inn’s front desk.
Verschueren stated that the bear had been “chased [into the hotel] by people trying to take photographs.” When trying to get the bear to exit the hotel, a similar obstacle made it difficult to get the bear to leave the premises. The front parking lot was full of people eager to take the bear’s photo, many of them standing on their cars. The bear is presumed to be the same one that had been wandering around the Seward Harbor earlier in the day, and had also been spotted at the nearby Chevron Station.
So clearly the bear, like any local celebrity, was simply trying to avoid the paparazzi.
Funny thing though is that this bear apparently attracted far more photographers than now show up to take pictures of a certain former half term governor.
We have had an unprecedented number of bear attacks in Alaska this year, two of them fatal.
One of the fatal ones involved a young biologist named Erin K. Johnson who was killed by a black bear while collecting geological samples near the Pogo Mine at the time of the attack.
Erin's mother is a fan of IM, and she reached out to me last night asking if I would post a link to a memorial fund established in her daughter's name.
I said of course I would.
Just click here to visit the Erin K. Johnson Memorial Fund.
The money will go toward science education and youth outdoor activities, which seem like very worthy causes to me.
I can only imagine this mother's immense grief at losing her daughter, and hope that at least with donations from kind strangers some good can be done in her child's name.
Thank you for reading this and for any support that you feel you can provide.
A 16-year-old runner in a Bird Ridge mountain race was killed by a black bear he apparently encountered while descending the trail Sunday, Alaska State Troopers and the race director said.
A Chugach State Park ranger shot the bear in the face, but it ran away. Rangers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game were still looking for the animal Sunday night on the slopeduring overlooking Turnagain Arm southeast of Anchorage.
The teenager, who has not been identified, was a participant in the juniors division of the Robert Spurr Memorial Hill Climb, said race director Brad Precosky. The close-knit Alaska mountain running community is in shock at the fatal mauling, he said.
"This is the worst thing that could happen," he said.
I feel so bad for this young man, that is a terrible way to go.
And I feel just as bad for his parents, this must have just devastated them.
As Alaskans we learn to coexist with our ursine neighbors, but we also learn to take great precautions to keep ourselves safe if ever we encounter one.
This young man was alone and unprepared which made him especially vulnerable.
I would urge all of my fellow Alaskans to walk the trails in groups, make plenty of noise, and perhaps even carry a can of bear spray just as a little added precaution.
Fortunately my handful of bear encounters have been relatively peaceful,
but I still remember the feeling of spine tingling fear that
accompanied each of them.
I have taken to hiking early in the morning up around Glen Alps, and though I have not seen a bear there in over twenty years, I am still constantly on alert.
I think now for my next hikes that will shift to high alert.
Believe it or not this happens with some frequency.
Not typically downtown, but all around Anchorage proper.
Quite a few years back we had an unfortunate incident where a local radio station was giving updates on a visiting bear's location.
People started showing up to get a look at the bear and things got so dicey that the cops had to shoot the bear.
Huge public outcry, and ever since then folks have shown a little more restraint.
I have to admit that I found this video over on Palin's Facebook page, which I think marks the very first time I have borrowed anything from there without mocking it or making fun of her for posting it.
A man was flown to a hospital Friday after being mauled by a bear near the Denali Highway, the Alaska State Troopers said Sunday.
Troopers were not releasing details such as the man's name or the severity of his injuries as of Sunday afternoon, according to troopers spokesman Tim DeSpain.
The man and at least one companion were in an area near Mile 68 of the Denali Highway on Friday when the attack happened. The circumstances of the mauling were not clear Sunday, but DeSpain said they may have been hunting.
I have a rule about going into the woods in the spring.
I don't.
Spring time is when these monsters emerge from hibernation cranky and hungry, and if they are females possibly with cubs.
As a rule I tend to stay out of thickly wooded areas. And if I do hike I tend to go to well used trails in open areas where there is good visibility and other hikers, often with their dogs, nearby.
Now there are some folks who argue that they are safe because they never go into the woods without a fire arm.
I have a name for these people, "future bear scat."
Often those people are extra careless because they ignorantly believe that their rifles or handguns have magical properties that will protect them.
That is wrong, and in fact if you read about bear attacks in Alaska the recurring theme is that the people fired their weapons, sometimes multiple times, and it seemed to have no effect.
If you have any doubts as to the power and ferocity of these magnificent animals take a moment to watch what I think is the most realistic bear attack I have ever seen in a movie.
The second grizzly bear mauling in less than two months on the outskirts of Alaska's largest city has sent another runner to the hospital with serious injuries. The attack this time came in Bird Valley, just south of Anchorage. It follows on an attack at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in mid-May.
Both attacks involved people surprising grizzly sows with cubs. The JBER attack involved a sow with small cubs of the year. The latest attack was launched by a sow with two nearly grown cubs, probably 2-year-olds.
Runner Suzanne Knudsen, who lives in a roadside community called Indian south of Anchorage, was less than a mile down the Bird Valley Trail near her home on Monday morning when she encountered the sow and cubs, according to Jessy Coltrane, area wildlife biologist with the Alaska State Troopers.
This poor woman was hit from behind by the mother after almost running into her two cubs.
The bear really did a number on her, and after it left she still had to wait an hour before she was rescued. Not too many things I can imagine that are more frightening than that.
Like I said in the headline this is only about 28 miles from my house and it is very close to one of my favorite hiking trails near McHugh Creek. (Which itself was the scene of one of the most brutal attacks in Alaska history.)
I take kids into the woods all of the time to go hiking, and these stories always send a chill up my spine.
I am very cautious and make very careful choices as to where to hike, how big of a group to take, and how to behave on the trails, but of course there is always the chance that my precautions will not be enough to avoid a confrontation.
Living in Alaska has been described as being surrounded by terrifying natural beauty, and I think that about sums it up.
I love it here but part of living in Alaska is also living with the fact that the state is almost like a serial killer waiting to take me out if I ever let my guard down. (By the way we have a lot of serial killers too.)
This from the nasty middle school mean girl's Facebook page:
Oh dear Piers, thank you so much for all your invitations to appear on your shambolic show, including the adoring message you sent. But is it still any wonder why I've politely responded that I'm too busy doing, um, er... pretty much anything to accept the invite? (At least I didn't tell you to "get stuffed".) And to all our British friends: we ask, what did your friends across the pond ever do to you to deserve your Piers? (This is followed by yet another smiley face emoticon because apparently Palin is in the middle of her second round of pubescence. Hopefully this time it will take.)
Palin then links to Breitbart article that outs Morgan as having fallen for that Daily Currant parody the other day. And uses that as an excuse to discredit him.
Okay first off if ANYBODY actually believes that Sarah Palin is currently bear hunting you are too stupid to be on this blog, so go away, and secondly what Piers Morgan fails to realize is that Sarah Palin is flat out TERRIFIED to appear on non-Fox News shows to be interviewed, and would NEVER do so unless the hosts promised not to ask her any questions that had not been screened ahead of time. And even though I am not a fan of Piers, I don't think he would agree to that.
ps @SarahPalinUSA ..and the offer to come on my show still stands. Like I said, we'd have fun....if you've got the guts to do it.. #CNN#PML
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) October 25, 2013
Being called 'shambolic' by @SarahPalinUSA is most amusing. I wonder if she can see irony from her house?
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) October 25, 2013
Gee I wonder if as a replacement he would like to have me come on and tell him all about the things that she is afraid to have him ask her.
Don't worry this does not mean that Levi is again attempting to get a reality television show. In fact from what I was able to gather he was VERY hesitant to participate.
I have to say that after watching this I have a new respect for Levi's prowess as a hunter. The guy knows his stuff, and his instruction to the main protagonist as to how to properly use a rifle, and his attention to safety, was very professional.
You know Tank used to go on and on about Levi's abilities as a hunter, but I never knew if he was shitting me or not.
Where but in Alaska would the first trail grooming report from the local cross-country ski association note a problem with a trail user that just might maul someone? Yes, look out, another Mama Grizzly is on the prowl in the 49th state. And this one, according to reports, is a real bear:
"Groomer John reported 2 inches of snow up on the Hillside Trails. He’s rolling it down to a half-inch -- starting that all important base development. He also reported a “Big A**” bear wandering around up there. Last report this morning he (the bear) was walking down (a trail named) Double Bubble."
Later reports from numerous people who crossed the animal's tracks on the Hillside indicated this one might be traveling with a smaller companion, which would make the animal a "her" and not a "he." Adult male bears are solitary animals. Only sows travel with cubs, which they have to protect from other bears, especially males, that would like to kill them. The danger posed to cubs by other bears is thought to be part of the reason sow grizzlies are aggressively protective.
I posted this because I just let my daughter's dog out to relieve herself, and in a few minutes she started making this weird whining sound I have never heard her make before. I quickly got up to let her in, and she damn near knocked me down getting back into the house.
I have no idea if what was scaring her was bear related, but I will say that Hillside Park is just over a mile away, and that I have had a bear in my yard in the past. (My backyard is only few feet away from the wooded area behind my house.)
Sometimes people ask me if I am ever afraid to take on Sarah Palin while living in Alaska. The answer is "Of course not!" There are far more dangerous things wandering around out there than Sarah "freaking" Palin.
She can call herself a "Mama Grizzly" all she wants, but she will NEVER be as terrifying as the real thing.
The real thing, which just might be prowling my neighborhood as we speak.
Now if you will excuse me I have to go comfort a quivering canine.
The male bear came out of the woods from one of Anchorage’s many greenbelts. It was struck on the Seward Highway near Cal Worthington Ford. The collision pushed in the front end of Hawkins’ Land Rover. The vehicle’s air bags deployed, but Hawkins was uninjured.
“The poor animal just came from nowhere,” he said.
He called 911 and got out of his car to await police. The bear, now angry and in a lot of pain with a broken leg, was behind the Land Rover stumbling around, roaring and growling.
Officers arrived within minutes and advised Hawkins to get back in his vehicle; he did. At one point, the bear charged the officers, police spokesman Paul Honeman said.
The grizzly made its way off the road and back into the woods, where officers found it and killed it.
I have lived here all of my life. I have dodged more moose then I can count in and around Anchorage. But I have NEVER seen a bear on the roads.
About twenty years ago we had a bear in town that got chased along the streets by a bunch of people who were being egged on by a radio station which kept giving updates on the bears' location. That bear also ended up dead.
This is the strangest summer for bears that I have ever experienced. There are way more, they are way more aggressive, and for some reason they seem to be getting bolder.
This is a sad summer for bears, and a frightening one for Anchorage citizens.
Clivia Feliz, a longtime runner and user of Anchorage trails, believes the bear mauling that left her seriously injured Friday evening was her own fault.
"I shouldn't have been on that trail," she said from her hospital bed this afternoon.
The bear bit Feliz about six times, but only once with force into her torso. She heard her ribs crunch against the teeth of the bear.
Feliz, 51, was the second person in six weeks to be attacked by a brown bear on the Rover's Run trail in Far North Bicentennial Park.
Fish and Game biologist Rick Sinnott said he is heading into the park this evening to try to find and kill the grizzly.
The bear has two cubs with it. Sinnott said they will likely be disposed of also.
I feel badly about the possible death of this bear, especially since it may have well been simply protecting her cubs, but there is a very real possibility that she may be responsible for a number of these attacks and that makes her too dangerous to be this close to Anchorage.
Devon Rees could have played dead. Or run. Instead, he chose to fight the bear that lunged out of the woods near his home in Eagle River on Monday morning.
"I definitely earned my bragging rights boxing a bear," said Rees, 18. "It got me a couple of times, and I got her a good couple of times. I wasn't going to give the bear an easy target."
Rees was walking home from a friend's house along VFW Road -- a frontage road that parallels the Glenn Highway -- at about 2 a.m. When he left the paved street for a dirt road that crosses Meadow Creek, he was less than 50 yards from his home at the edge of Chugach State Park. Midway across, he heard a splash down the embankment at the water's edge, perhaps 10 feet away. Probably just some salmon jumping, he thought.
This late in summer, darkness envelops the woods in the early morning hours. Rees couldn't see a thing. As he continued on, a quick rustle was followed by a brief glint of hair. When the bear barrelled out and tore into him, he tore back.
"I was doing the best I could to stay up on my toes and move all around it," Rees said. "I figured my best chance was to fight the best I could, fight the hardest I could to get away." The bear bit into his arms. Scratched his side. Dug into his thighs. Swatted his head. Rees was pumped with adrenaline, masking the pain of teeth and nails sinking into his flesh. He started yelling furiously. He threw elbows and punches into the bruin's head, kicked when he could.
As suddenly as the attack began, the bear released him. He didn't wait around. Rees began staggering up the road, shoeless and with pants shredded, calling 911 on his cell phone as he headed toward a nearby fire station. Police arriving on the scene found Rees near the Equipment Direct Rental store, but by that time, the bear was gone, police Lt. Paul Honeman said.
The conventional wisdom in Alaska is to fight back against a black bear, but to lay down and play dead if attacked by a Grizzly. A hard decision to make under any circumstances, but what if it is too dark to tell exactly what kind of bear is kicking your ass?
Well hats off to Devon Rees. We all hope that we would have the cojones to fight off an attack if one every occurred but this young man can stand up and say "I fought the bear, and the bear did NOT win".
These attacks are pretty unsettling. We always have a few bear encounters but this year the number is especially high. In response I have done absolutely no hiking and have used caution when I visit any of the parks outside of town.
I hate to blame this on Climate Change, but we had a very late summer (many of us think it never really arrived) and this may be having some effect on the behavior of the hungry bruins.
The link above will take you to footage from an Eagle River couples home video of a bear attack on a moose calf. Use some caution as it may upset those of a more sensitive nature.
I have to say that I have lived here for over forty years and have never seen anything like this. I am both amazed and repulsed by the video.
But this is nature in its rawest form. And that is really what Alaska is all about.
Hillside resident Scott Gorder has seen so many bears in his yard in recent years that he's nervous about leaving his house come summer.
"It's getting absolutely ridiculous," said Gorder, 45, who lives with his family near Rabbit Creek. "My daughter was walking to the shed one day, and a (black) bear stepped out behind her. I ended up sticking a pitchfork in its butt."
A lifelong resident of the city, Gorder knows that a black bear is no match for an armed man -- even if the man is only armed with a pitchfork. Black bears are fairly easily intimidated. Grizzly bears, on the other hand, are not.
Wildlife biologists would not recommend sticking a grizzly with a pitchfork. The animal would be just as likely to respond by attacking as by fleeing.
Fortunately, Gorder said, the bears that have invaded his property are primarily black bears, though he wouldn't be surprised to see a grizzly. He's found grizzly tracks and what little was left of moose calves they caught.
Since he bought his home in 1990 he's seen the number of bears increase, he said.
"I grew up in town," Gorder said, "but as kids we camped everywhere (on the city's edge). I never saw a bear."
I would agree with that assessment. I also grew up in Anchorage. I never saw a bear close to town, but I knew that if you ventured even ten miles into the backcountry you would be right in the middle of bear country. So when we went it was always with the understanding that you were in a potentially dangerous environment and you acted accordingly.
But things have changed.
If you check out this interactive map you can see for yourself just how close the bears are to us and how many there are these days. And those are just the ones dumb enough to get collared! (By the way, bears 207 and 208 are apparently the ones that like my neighborhood.)
All of this recent attention to bears in Anchorage is due to this unfortunate brown bear attack on a fourteen year old girl participating in a bike race. This attack so close to our city has spooked even long time residents.
Personally I am keeping my kids off of the trails for the time being. We had a late summer and perhaps that is having some impact on the bears behavior. Who knows, but it is definitely better to be safe then sorry.
Anchorage could have a new international celebrity: a nearly 70-year-old retired teacher who has spent the past two decades hiding from the public eye in an effort to conceal his intimate love affair with a large gang of black and grizzly bears.
After the existence of Charlie Vandergaw's Susitna Valley bear farm was revealed in the Daily News last spring, the former Dimond High School wrestling coach decided to come clean with his unbelievable story.
British documentary filmmaker Jon Alwen spent 51 days with Vandergaw at the farm last summer. His hourlong documentary, which aired on television in Great Britain two weeks ago, provides an up-close view of Vandergaw's life with a collection of black and brown bears that are treated more like, and sometimes behave more like, family dogs than bears.
Except, of course, when the family dog puts its paws on you they usually aren't on your shoulders, and even if they are, they aren't tipped with four-inch-long, razor-sharp claws and the dog's head doesn't tower three feet above yours.
Alwen filmed a scene like this and others equally shocking. Vandergaw, however, said the young filmmaker "didn't even get the best stuff."
I have written about Charlie Vandergaw before and mentioned that I was student of his almost thirty years ago at Dimond High School. Charlie was my science teacher and a frequent visitor to the weight room where I often hung out after school. Charlie was the wrestling coach, and every year would try to convince me to go out for the team. I was a good athlete but disliked team sports. I did wrestle for another school when I briefly lived with my father during my sophomore year. Charlie never failed to mention that I needed to make amends since I had wrestled for an opposing team. I never did, and he never stopped making me feel guilty about it.
Charlie was a good guy and I really enjoyed his enthusiasm for science when I was in his class. He did these great experiments with electricity in his room and even made a small explosion one day, which as a teenage boy I thought was freaking awesome.
I am actually happy to be given the chance to write about this topic again because the last time I made a mistake in saying that Charlie had an identical twin brother named Glenn who had once been my math teacher. This was something that I and all of my peers thought to be true. But in the comments section of the last post Charlie and Glenn's brother wrote to say that they were not twins though many people believed that they were. He also said that Glenn also spent time at the bear farm as well.
Anyhow I apologize for providing any disinformation, I do so try to get the facts right.
If you are interested in seeing the YouTube video advertising this upcoming documentary you can find that here:
By the way as for the right and wrong of feeding these bears and acclimating them to humans I am going to have to stay agnostic. Growing up in Alaska I have been taught my whole life to keep my garbage cleaned up so that it does not attract bears, and not to feed the moose, or the geese, or any other wild animal I may encounter.
But Charlie is clearly in a different category. He offers a unique opportunity to see bears interacting with each other and him in an environment where the laws of nature seem to have been suspended, allowing the bears to be seen as complex social creatures who can learn and adapt in ways that perhaps was never fully understood before. According to Charlie these bears behave like bears when they leave his property, which seems to serve as a wilderness version of Switzerland, offering an oasis of neutrality for potential combatants and enemies.
Like I said I knew Charlie so I will take him at his word.
Good luck Mr. Vandergaw and thanks for the science lessons, which it is clear you are still providing.
A grizzly bear that spent the last week wandering areas around Ship Creek and the Port of Anchorage was shot and killed by police Wednesday night after it ambled into a neighborhood and wouldn't leave.
The bear hadn't behaved aggressively or gotten into any trouble. But it also wasn't spooked by people.
"Most bears will hide or run away when they see a person coming," Sinnott said. "This one was not doing that. It was a young bear, sort of testing the waters here in town. ... It just thought people were probably a fairly neutral element."
Well I bet that bear does not think that people are a neutral element now does she?
You know we get bears in town every year, but this year it seems like they are being killed for the slightest reason. And was this particular bear really a threat?
"We checked its stomach contents to see if it had been into garbage or anything," Sinnott said. "And it just had grass and fish in it. So it was eating a purely natural diet, at least before it was shot."
So this bear made the mistake of acting like a bear too close to civilization. Isn't it interesting how quickly civilization can be uncivil?
