SITKA
Harvey suggested that, rather than rush back for the last few minutes the NPS library was open, I should visit Sitka’s public one. He thought they might have some old news clippings about the Harriman visit. They didn’t, but they did have something just as good: original hardbound copies of the first two volumes of the Harriman Alaska Series, published in 1901. Harriman had paid to have Edward Curtis’s gelatin silver prints reproduced as photogravures, giving them a rich, almost tactile texture. The most inviting of them was identified as Footpath Along Indian River, Sitka. I walked the mile from St. Michael’s down to the end of the main waterfront road, which terminated at the Sitka National Historical Park. This was a large collection of totem poles with a nice visitor center where you could pick up maps and escape from the rain, which had begun to fall again. I inquired at the information desk about hiking the Indian River Trail the next day.
“Oh my God, that is my favorite trail—it is so gorgeous,” said the young ranger on duty, who appeared to be about fifteen. The sinuous path cut through a rainforest of spruce and hemlock to reach a waterfall. “Just one thing—there was a bear spotted yesterday, so you’ll really need to bring bear spray.” She held up a small can that looked like a miniature fire extinguisher and contained weaponized chili pepper extract. “It’s fifty dollars for the can, and I’m sorry you’re not allowed to take it on an airplane,” she said.
As it happened, I was planning to depart Sitka by air, because the ferry couldn’t get me to my next destination for a week. There have been many occasions in my life, often after the consumption of hard liquor, when I have spent fifty dollars on goods and services less useful for my long-term health than bear spray. You need only watch and read the Alaska news for a few weeks in the spring and summer to understand that unpleasant human-ursine interactions are common enough to deserve their own news category: SPORTS—WEATHER—ENTERTAINMENT—MAULINGS. Dealing with bears in Alaska was something you were just supposed to pick up by osmosis before getting yourself in trouble, like proper subway etiquette in New York City.
According to the various sources of information I had been collecting from the Park Service, the best strategy was to avoid bears altogether. This applies to both black bears and brown bears. (Grizzly bears are a variety of brown bear that lives inland.) Bears do not like to be surprised, so hikers are advised to make noise by clapping or attaching to their clothing the sorts of bells usually associated with sleigh rides and court jesters. Mother bears with cubs are especially ill-disposed toward unexpected visitors. (“Defensive encounters usually occur suddenly and at close distances,” said one NPS brochure. In other words: “Oops. Hey! Aaaaaaah!”) Bears are curious and may want to check you out; should you encounter one that is stationary, back away slowly. Though if the bear follows you, another brochure warned, “STAND YOUR GROUND.” Never run from a bear, because it can move at thirty-five miles per hour and will happily chase you down like other prey animals. I was advised to keep in mind that “bears often make bluff charges, sometimes coming within 10 feet of their adversary, without making contact. Continue waving your arms and talking to the bear.” This is the moment one is supposed to whip out the bear spray.
And if the bear isn’t dissuaded by your flailing and oratory and aerosol Tabasco sauce and decides to attack you? A brown bear will typically stop attacking once it no longer feels threatened. We did say this was a brown bear, right? Because if it’s a black bear, “DO NOT PLAY DEAD,” one of the more dramatic brochures advised. “Most black bear attacks are predatory.” (Fun fact: Black bears often have blond, brown, or cinnamon-colored fur. The easiest way to tell a black bear from a brown bear is that the latter has a distinctive shoulder hump. I guess if you’re attacked, you should calmly reach around the bear’s neck and feel for the hump.) You are also supposed to fight back (“vigorously!”) against a brown bear “if the attack is prolonged and the brown bear begins to feed on you.” What I really needed was a checklist for determining the moment a bear ceases her defensive attack and commences tearing into your flesh with the intent to swallow and digest you. Ideally it would be laminated.
I mentioned some of this at breakfast the next morning at the Sitka B & B at which I was staying. Everyone had strong opinions. A couple from Anchorage told how they’d moved from down south unaware of bear danger but quickly got brought up to speed.
“My first day at work, I met a coworker with one arm,” the woman said. “You can’t exactly introduce yourself and say, ‘Nice to meet you—how did you lose your arm?’ So I asked someone else and she told me, ‘Oh, that? Bear attack.’ Like she’d been in a fender bender.”
“I won’t show you the picture my buddy sent me of his coworker, but his face is ripped off,” her husband said, spreading jam on a slice of toast. “They sewed it back on, but only one eye works. You probably saw they just found a guy in Anchorage, near dead. They thought he was a stabbing victim. The hospital up there has a doctor who’s like the world’s leading expert on bear attack injuries. He took one look at the guy in the ER and said, ‘This wasn’t a stabbing—this guy was mauled.’”
Ann, our grandmotherly host, came in from the kitchen with a pot of fresh coffee. “One time I was out hunting and I saw a grizzly knock down a tree and jump on it until it splintered,” she said. “I thought, Well, I guess I’m going to hunt somewhere else today.” There was a brief debate over whether it was preferable to bring a .38 or a .44 for protection when in bear country. The .44 was the majority choice.
“What about bear spray?” I asked. “Or wearing those bells to warn the bear you’re coming?”
“Ha!” Ann laughed. “The spray is just as likely to hit you in the face as the bear. And they say those bells are effective mostly as a way to call the bear to dinner.” Someone told a joke that I was to hear several times during my time in Alaska. When in the backcountry, you can tell if animals are nearby and active by watching for bear poop, but you need to be able to differentiate between black bear scat and brown bear scat. Black bear droppings contain twigs, berry seeds, and fish bones and smell like the forest. Brown bear droppings contain twigs, berry seeds, fish bones, and bells and smell like pepper spray.
“And it’s no use bringing a dog, because if the dog sees a grizzly, it’ll turn tail and lead the bear right back to you,” Ann said. “I like the old saying: Bring a gun and someone slower than you.”
It rained hard for the remainder of my time in Sitka. I took the fifty dollars I’d saved down to the slightly seedy Pioneer Bar, where on a Sunday afternoon not long ago, one patron pulled a gun on another in the men’s room following an argument. Almost every flat surface had an ashtray on it—smoking in bars is against the law even in Alaska, but I didn’t get the sense anyone in the P-Bar minded, or at least didn’t care enough to pull a gun in the bathroom. Through the faint Marlboro haze I noticed photos all over the walls of what looked like Roman centurions standing with their shields. A closer inspection revealed that they were fishermen posing with hundred-pound halibut the size of surfboards.
“Do bears eat halibut?” I asked the man to my right.
“Brown bears? No, no,” he said. “But polar bears, yeah, sure.”