Bears and more Bears

 

This year's Karluk excavation was literally in the middle of bear country. Our excavation was directly above a shallow spot on Thumb Creek where the salmon pool up. The bears love it because it is an easy place to catch salmon. Needless to say, but this is the same reason that Alutiiq people have camped there and returned to the same spot for the last 5000 years. It is a GREAT place to catch fish.

So we saw lots of bears. There was pretty much always a bear or two fishing in the creek down below us. You'd be digging and hearing the cubs growl and bears splashing after fish. There were two different sows that each had 3 cubs who were pretty much regulars. In the beginning I'd hear splashing while I was digging and would always leap up to watch the show. But by the end I would only occasionally jump up to watch the bears chase fish.

The sows with cubs liked having us around, and also the Kodiak Brown Bear Center guests who are there to watch the bears, because we keep away the scary big boars who kill the cubs. We provide safety. We also came up with a routine and the bears came to know our routine. We did not go down to the creek and they did not come up to our excavation. They also knew the trail we used to go to and fro from camp and they respected our space as we did theirs. That said one young bear did check on our electric fence but that's a part of learning boundaries (LOL).

Patrick