Locomotoring

Incidentally, Sitka is bear country, it boasts of nearly a bear per square mile. Practically every trailhead boasts of bear sightings. I don’t see one outside of the Fortress of the Bear. The taxidermy specimens at the Sitka airport don’t count.

Forest services don’t expect us to meet one. But when you are in bear country, you are supposed to be prepared. Popular wisdom says that one should hike in groups and talk loudly. Really? Don’t hikes exist to seek the natural quiet? I wondered about playing Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan while walking and then I remembered seeing a photograph of a totem pole depicting a famous native chief who could lure bears with his singing. If a bear has a sense of melody, Nusrat ji is clearly a no-no. Apparently, bears may not hear you close to waterfalls and roaring creeks and you are never far from one in Tongass.

Popular wisdom also says that bear are most are active around dawn and dusk. If I were getting ready for hibernation, I would be eating all day! Around this time, there is more salmon than water in the creeks. On our first hike, we saw a sign from a previous hiker who claimed to have spotted a large brown bear two days ago at 2 pm “just around the bend by the clearing”.

Having watched a youTube video on proper use of a bear spray, I feel even less prepared. Bears can’t smell you if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. If the bear can’t smell you, then chances are, you are blowing the pepper spray with the wind against your face, right? Brown bear is the size of a car. There is always the Rei wisdom – if faced with worst case of being charged by a compact car with large teeth and claws, play dead.

There are two brown bears at the Fortress. During our short time there, Toby wanted to move from one enclosure to the other, the two enclosures are separated by metal gates and a passageway. To let its caretakers know that she wanted to move, she started persistently banging on the metal gate. It was a rather child like behavior. When she couldn’t be ignored any longer, a complex set of locking metal gates were prepared for her passage. She could barely contain her patience while she waited. She crawled in through a half open gate as soon as she could squeeze in. Once she moved to the other side, she went back to playing again.