Bears

One day Don and I were biking on the Coastal Trail.  We stopped to rest at Westchester Lagoon and were approached by a young woman doing a university project on bear encounters.  She said most press is about bad encounters, and they wanted to know how people actually felt.  We were asked to count the number of bears we had seen in our life and to describe one encounter, how we felt, where we were etc.

At first I thought I had seen about a dozen bears and as we spoke to her I realized I have seen many more than that.  The funny thing was that I forgot to count the times I had actually gone out of my way to see them!

The following is my memory of bears in Alaska.   I also saw a bear running across a road in New Hampshire once.

1. Two sets of  grizzly sows with two cubs in Denali.
2. Two black bears alone while fishing on the Russian River with the BOW program.
3. Grizzly sow and two cubs at the military base fishing with Jan and Cindy.
4. Bear seen at Alyska from the tram.
5. Grizzly seen while fishing with Karen and Jim and Don at Big River Lake.
6. Five bears at Brooks Lodge.
7. Smelled a bear at Princess Lodge Cooper's Landing.