A Better View of the Bears

So it has been a few days since I've last posted. Things here are gearing up for school to begin and are a little unnerving with so much I still want to do this summer.

I do want to share a little bit of your time and tell you of a few things we did while Nana was here although she has since left; about a week ago. I'm going to spend the day catching up.

If you've been watching the blog than you know all about my birthday bear siting. What I didn't mention in that post is that we took a trip back out to the beach the next day with Jim and Bill (Scott's hunting buddies from Montana). We wanted to see if the cubs were still there and Scott thought the guys might enjoy seeing them if they were.

We were there quite some time without seeing them. In fact, the kids set off straight away to tempt themselves with the water.


Cali started collecting things and soon thereafter all of them went about decorating "Big Momma's house" for the umpteenth time in their lives.


For those of you not in the know, "Big Momma's house" is a large piece of driftwood/tree root that never moves and has been made into numerous things like restaurants and shops. There are other large driftwood trees and boulders in the area that are magically transformed into shops and things as well.

Then, add to that all the junk found along the beach and a whole village can be created in one afternoon.


I love this photo of Cori and the rock cell phone she is using.

Anyway, They headed that direction and Scott and the boys starting throwing rocks to see who could go the distance.


I was wondering off collecting rocks like I usually do. After a bit I headed over to Nana who was watching the boys.

She was grinning and telling me that Scott was beating the boys at their rock throwing contest. If you enlarge this photo you can see the quirky smile; doesn't it just make you grin too. :-) That is a very proud mama. I thought, Nana was bragging about her son and I wasn't really sure he was out distancing those younger, stronger guys. Low and behold as I rambled over to watch, he was.


It became rather apparent that this annoyed the one that was having the contest with him. (I can't remember which one it was-Cori says it was Bill) I took lots of pictures of the moment. Scott's grins tell just how much he was gloating at his obvious skill.


As this all started to wear thin, and the boys realized they were never going to get Scott into the ocean, or throw farther than he, things settled down. About that time a couple of gals coming down the hill from the parking lot and asked if we knew there were bears in the area. We mentioned that we were there to see them however they weren't around, to which they snickered at our ignorance. There they were, right behind us and we hadn't realized it.

I think Nana got quite a giggle about the whole situation too. I took this photo of her right about that time and absolutely love it.

She looks so healthy and happy. She seems joyful here; I was so excited about this photo.

Scott and the boys quickly broke out all of the camera's and started clicking away. I won't bore you with the many photos but I can show a few of the closest shots. The 3 of them slowly worked their way to a nearby dark boulder that would serve as a barrier between them and the cubs.


As you see here, a barrier isn't such a bad thing to have. Even though they are young, they can still be quite aggressive. In the end the boys were barely a rocks throw away.



It was still quite a thrill the second day, seeing these creatures of Alaskan nature. It simply doesn't happen often.

We managed to get Nana to sneak in a little closer but not so close as to make them or her uncomfortable.

The bears spent most of their time digging up salmon carcasses and running back and forth between the beach and their apparent den.

Unfortunately, these little guys will likely perish this winter. We know fish and game has been called but these kinds of things happen too often and they simply can not save them all. It makes me sad because they have provided much pleasure to us. I know the likelyhood that they make it just slightly north into a more wooded area are slim and none. I am not sure they would know what to do when they got there. Do bears naturally know to hibernate and eat like crazy before they do? I am not sure. I have hope that somehow they will get the help they need and they survive. What do you think, would you want to take one home?