Field Report, September 2017: Casual Surrealism, with an Edge

Friends,

The overriding theme for this September was that the more normal Brooks Camp seems, the stranger it gets.  Not that I haven’t noticed this before, but the sense of it never struck me so hard and so often as on this tour.  

Submitted for your approval:  While talking with Susan on the sat phone after work, I notice two adult coastal brown bears walking toward me, each from a different direction and each less than a minute out.  With little thought or emotion I say to Susan “I’ve got bears on both sides.  I’ll need to call you back in a few once this gets sorted out.”  “Okay Sweetie, no hurries.”  “Talk to you in a few.” “Okay, bye.” “Bye.”   Or consider how, while walking back to the yurt after dinner, I walk past the corner of the visitor center and see a sow with two cubs by the entrance, a few yards away.  She is jaw popping, a serious warning signal and sign of stress.  I turn around non-chalantly, and walk over to Nick, the bear tech still on duty, and say, as if leaving my cubicle for the day, “Hey Nick, you’ve got a jaw-popping sow by the VC entrance.  I’m going to take the back way and get some sleep.  See you in the morning.”  “Okay. See ya."

Believe me, I don’t think this is any indication whatsoever of courage or any other moral quality on my part, or anyone else's.  Zero.  Desensitization is a more or less mechanical reaction, and while it can help you get to sleep at night, it is also something that, esp. if it gets attached to your ego (as it often does), can get you killed.  My supervisor, Michael Saxton, makes it a point to read about every bear mauling he can find in the news for the very purpose of trying to avoid letting de-sensitization go too far, and I will be doing the same.  Further, one of my biggest annoyances (and sources of heated conversations) at Brooks are NPS staff, lodge employees, visitors, and esp. fishing guides and bush pilots who like to show off their de-sensitization.  Puffery.  I’m not saying I don’t fall victim to letting my ego get attached to my desensitization. I do. But I do fight it, and desensitization is not a virtue.

Nonetheless, while desensitization is a double-edged sword, it is to some degree a necessary one.  I get little sleep for my first couple of nights whenever I return to Brooks, not from any conscious bear anxiety but from a kind of general adrenaline rush.  I wouldn’t make it a week without collapsing from exhaustion if I didn’t desensitize on some level, dangerous as that is.

Outside the realm of desensitization there is what I guess would have to be called routinization.  It is just as much a source of the odd local flavor of working at Brooks as what I’ve described above.  One morning I heard a red-breasted nuthatch in camp, a relatively rare songbird in the area.  For the next couple of days it was often my primary topic of conversation upon first seeing other bear techs or interp rangers.  That is so in spite of the fact that each day, usually multiple times per day, I have to haze brown bears out of camp, go off trail to find missing bears (often not finding them until very close), and have who-knows-how-many bear sightings and close encounters.  Most of the techs and rangers were interested in the nuthatch.  They would have looked at me with bored impatience if I’d brought up anything but the most bizarre bear hazing or scouting incident.

Regarding the action around camp itself, you may recall that July was insanely busy; far more active than usual.  I expected September to be similarly abnormal, and it was.  It was not, however, madcap action in the manner of July.  We had bear trespasses of course, but they were fewer, and never in my experience included the rollicking, rolling bear family play-fights that often careened around camp two months ago.  I did see sows playing with cubs, but for some reason (perhaps the beginning stages of hyperphagia) the families were a relatively subdued lot.  While I did see subadults play-fighting, I did not see the running, careening, almost-perpetual, gang play-fights of July.  The most exceptional thing about this September was the number and length of the bear jams around the bridge and elsewhere.  September at Brooks Camp is famous for bear jams as it is, and this one was well beyond anything I’ve seen in my five years of visiting. 

I also found that the bears were distinctly harder to haze than in July.  Presumably hyperphagia played a part, and no doubt a factor was that most of the regulars to the lower river had already been hazed multiple times this year.  My sense of it was that they avoided camp more (the aversive conditioning works to some extent), but if they felt motivated enough to come in, they were more willing to put up with the annoyance of the bear techs.  

The most interesting thing to me that I learned about bears this tour was, as is so often the case, something that I’d already picked up on but had hardly conceived of its magnitude. The lesson involved what not-so-little punks yearling coastal brown bear cubs are in the fall.  Lovable punks (mostly), but punks nonetheless.  The best estimates from sources I trust are that they run from 200 to 250 lbs. at Brooks in September, and are forces in themselves.  Given that, and given Mom’s still-perpetual presence nearby, they seem to think of themselves as the Masters of the Universe, and behave accordingly.  

As sad as it is to watch, it truly is best for everyone concerned that most of them will be kicked out by their moms next season.  Were bears to form permanent social bonds like lions or wolves they would, I fear, be ecologically and individually insufferable.  

As I’ve mentioned before, there seems to be nothing that brings joy to a yearling cub like chasing subadults around, and around, and around.  While it had a kind of cute quality in July, by September the charm was gone for me.  The cubs by then were big enough, fast enough, and relentless and clever enough, that I really felt sorry for the poor subadults.

That said, I never finish a tour at Brooks without having become even more fond of bears, gangsters that they sometimes are.  In fact, they are often at their most charming when they are expressing their utter indifference to us, or even willfully thumbing their noses our way (mostly at us in bear management).  For an archetypal example of lovable indifference, we need only turn to Bear 410.  As many of you know, she is the undisputed matriarch of Brooks River.  At age 29 she is a venerable institution unto herself, with fans worldwide.  She is also legendary for her ability to shut down all human traffic between the bridge and the falls platform in September. This year she was at the pinnacle of her career in that regard.  She has a fondness for sleeping directly under the ramp of the lower river platform, and there could hardly be a better location at which to shut down traffic for hours, which she did almost every day after her return to the river.  There is no more perfect blending of fond affection and desperate exasperation than when a ranger announces over the radio “410 is going under the ramp!”

As for the thumbing of ursine noses…  While I think that wearing a GoPro while on the job with bear management would be an awful idea for any number of reasons, the one advantage it would have would be allowing me to capture all the hilarious ways (at least to me and in retrospect) that bear families sometimes tell me to “take a hike" when I haze them.  

I am anthropomorphizing a bit here—obviously--but I’m confident that it’s only a bit.  

Mostly this happens when I find a bear family has managed to sneak into camp and is lazing around at some favored location.  What follows is that the family will start playing all the more intensely when I arrive and begin hazing them.  Often the sow will gaze at me in a relaxed manner for extended stretches with a look that I can only translate into Human-ese as “Heh heh heh.”  Usually all I can do is just keep trying to be annoying, like some parrot in a bad mood in someone’s living room, and eventually the sow slowly gets moving.  Around this time, yearling cubs often go into Tough Guy Mode.  Whereas before they mostly just played in the usual cute style with mom and siblings, they now start ostentatiously ripping at grass or other elements of the scenery while mom pauses placidly a few yards away.  All the while I continue to bang sticks and cajole and scuff my feet with a feeling in my gut that can only be described as cautious, bemused, dubious determination, while the cubs continue to rip and tear.  It’s cute on their part,  but keep in mind that these are 200-250 lb. Alaskan coastal brown bear “cubs.”   Eventually the family moves away and I get behind them and encourage them out of camp so that we don’t go through it all again (it takes relatively little hazing for that part).

As usual I’ve only scratched the surface of the strangeness that is so often life at Brooks, but I will finish with one more vignette.  This one is not so much surreal as Tolkien-esque, in the Mirkwood sense.  As I remain an unrepentant lover of the genuinely Tolkien-esque, it is my favorite vignette from 2017.  

I, six visitors, and ranger Kristen Davis found ourselves surrounded by nine bears at close quarters in the woods near the camp side of the bridge.  How we found ourselves in that position is too complex to go into here, but I could have asked for no better company than Ranger Kristen, a backcountry Renaissance woman, former professional ballerina, and an enthusiastic but cool hand around bears.  Forget ballerina stereotypes.  Mess with Kristen Davis at your peril.

Kristen and I had positioned ourselves at opposite sides, and a few feet outside of, the tightly huddled group of visitors.  It was just past morning twilight and the forest, bears, and people were still mostly in shadow beneath the canopy, with dim rays of low angle light breaking through here and there.  The bears surrounded us as they passed by, no more than four or five feet away from Kristen and me.  The families of sows 854 and 409, which are at times unusually tolerant of each other, were pursuing a pair of subadults through the forest toward the beach, one family and one subadult passing on each side of our group.  The subadults had bigger problems on their mind than mere humans, and gave us hardly a glance as they hurried past.  The sows looked at us warily and intensely, but only briefly, as they passed in the shadows.  The huge yearling cubs, little over a yard away on either side, kept a hard eye on us, with enough of a snarl in their expressions to clearly show their canines.  They turned their heads as they passed, in order to continue keeping an eye on us lest we do something of which they would not approve.  After a minute that seemed outside of time, they had all gone by without a sound, disappearing into the woods toward the beach.

Somewhere in all this, Kristen said over her shoulder to the visitors, “I hope you are all enjoying this, because I know Carl and I are having a great time.”

Indeed we were.

Carl

Photos below. 

The flagging in this photo surrounds a bear board, a sheet of plywood with nails driven through.  It was placed here to cover an excavation site where Brooks Camp maintenance is trying to find a major leak in the system.  The purpose of the board is, of course, to keep bears from conducting their own excavation and investigation.  

I don’t like bear boards, but in situations like this I cannot come up with a viable alternative.

Photo credit:  NPS / Carl Ramm   

Bears playing in the surf of Naknek Lake near dawn.  We had a very windy day soon after I arrived, and at the beginning of my shift I walked down to the beach beneath the ranger station and found this sow and three cubs (one hidden in the surf).  I enjoyed having the scene to myself for a while, but eventually found enjoying it alone to be unbearable.  I walked up to the ranger station and found Kristen there, and she came down and got some great video footage of it.  I’m hoping she’ll have it posted soon. 

That’s a law enforcement truck in the background on the far side of the river.

The same family (854’s I think) after they had moved further toward the river, viewed from near the lodge.

Photo credit:  NPS / Carl Ramm

A different family at play later in the day.  Try to think of something cuter than cubs playing in the surf.  Just try.

Photo credit:  NPS / Carl Ramm

An area beside the trail from camp to the bridge, known among rangers as “The Playpen” or “The Tree of Destruction”.  It’s a pleasant getaway that allows bears to kick back for a bit after a morning of crunching salmon and engage in the fun of Recreational Tree Destruction, while simultaneously shutting down all human traffic between camp and the bridge.  Who could ask for more?

Ah, life in the yurt.  This was typical the men’s side in September. My bunk was out of sight just to the left of the photo facing away.  I chose it because it actually had some hooks to hang my clothes above it, and I was the longest term resident in September so I felt entitled.  In July I had the yurt mostly to myself, but various wilderness and survey crews coming though meant that I had it to myself only one night this month.  The crews were composed mostly of fit, friendly, bright 20-somethings.  They were remarkably good about the Prime Directive, which was letting the old guy get some sleep, but otherwise order was less of a concern than going fishing and partying at the lodge, for some reason.

The entrance to the men’s side.  Your tax dollars at work.

The place for recharging radios, abandoning coffee mugs for me to have to clean after you’ve boated off to go on patrol, etc..

The women’s side, photographed after due authorization.

Bear management lead Michael Saxton keeping an eye on a subadult as she heads down the camp trail toward the bridge.  At this point the bear is officially out of camp and it is almost completely immune from hazing.  The older sows know it, too, and will sometimes plop down immediately after crossing the line.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

The yellow boat owned by the lodge and one of my favorite places from which to scan for bears along the beach near camp.  It is also a favorite landmark for radio traffic.  “Bear is moving along the beach past the yellow boat, heading toward campground.”

One of 854’s yearlings in the foreground (looking oddly short and wolverine-ish in this photo) in the process of tormenting a subadult in the background,  who is hoping to escape via a trail that leads from camp to an archeological site.  The trail is not visible in this photo, but the trail cuts to the upper right of the image.  As this photo was taken, another of her three cubs was busy cutting through the woods to the right in order to successfully cut the subadult off.  This chase went all over camp.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

Michael giving directions to members to the same chase session as above, later and now near the visitor center.  I make no firm claims regarding the efficacy of pointing when it comes to bears.  Nonetheless, after you’ve done it for a while it and have learned a certain situational feeling, it sure **seems** to work with moving bears a lot better than it ought to.  Your results may vary.

I took these photos while off duty, since I don’t carry a camera on duty (I have enough gear on me as it is).  While off duty I can keep other bear techs updated by radio (and snap the odd photo or two) but cannot haze the bears or be near them in ways other than what  the public or non-bear tech staff are allowed to do.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

                                          Same chase, with Michael and 854 by the visitor center.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

The chased subadult near the end of the camp portion of the scenario.  S/he is munching on some grass, whether out of hunger or displaced aggression or both I cannot say.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

All of the most perfect and complete rainbow I’ve ever seen that I could fit in a single image.  Naknek Lake in the foreground and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and the Aleutian Range beyond.

A modest bear jam on the last day of my tour (and the last day for most Park Service and all lodge services).  This location is called “Trading Post” in camp radio jargon and is the furthest retreat site for people waiting for the bridge but who cannot cross, not only because of bears near the bridge (they don’t have to come this far back for that) but because of bears between the bridge and camp.  People waiting to get across spent a lot of time at this location this September.  Ranger Willard Barnhouse is keeping control of traffic.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm

In addition to the yellow boat, this is where I spent most of my time while actually standing still on duty (for most of my time on duty I’m not standing still).  It is known as “Overlook” and is a favorite place for bears to enter camp.

Getting ready to head out for 2017.  Most of the crew (and most of my stuff) left the next day but I ended up flying out with two other staff.  As always, it was disconcerting to go from living in the yurt and amidst the bear-driven semi-chaos of Brooks to the relative normality and regularity of life in our little ranch house in King Salmon.  

I guess that’s one of the reasons I write these field reports.  They're a way of dealing with the suddenness of so sharp a transition, of missing the adventure of Brooks while being happy to be back home with Susan.

Photo credit: NPS / Carl Ramm