Pack Creek is a bear viewing area managed by both the US Forest Service, and Alaska Dept of Fish, and Game. Each organization has a ranger on duty during the viewing season.
Most boaters anchor inside that small island during the stay of their permit period. We had arrived a day early, so we meandered around the other small islands before going over to anchor next to the creek area the day of our permit. Small story: I was at the helm while Bill was forward deploying the anchor, and he signaled to back down on the anchor. I had just revved the rpms in reverse to set the anchor, and I heard a voice behind me say, "good morning". Whaaat, and TF?!? I turned around and a small inflatable with some people in it, were RIGHT at the transom of the boat. They must have seen my startled expression at almost running them over, and they zoomed off pretty quick. Then, this is the next thing they did.
Um, no, waaaay too close to a momma brown bear with two cubs. The rangers were very unhappy with them.
They eventually returned to their home ship, and motored off. We chalked it up to tourists who were inexperienced, I'm sure that the driver of the inflatable was not the captain of the ship, he would have known better.
We were pretty excited though, wow, we saw three bears already. After anchoring, we put our dinghy in the water, and motored over to the mainland for our turn. The park provides a long "clothesline" into the water to tie up your conveyance, then they rotate it out, so that your dinghy isn't accessible to land. This helps to make sure that a bear doesn't tear it up while investigating new smells. The ranger gave us our bear speech, gave us a pamphlet on the area, and said we could take the trail to the overlook shed, or walk the beach to the creek. She advised us that there was a bear sleeping on the beach, and to be aware. We choose to walk the beach.
Our first encounter was with a deer grazing, and I thought he was pretty close to us. Around the corner from the beach to the creek, is the sitting log for people, and another ranger to manage the area. They weren't kidding when they said there was a bear sleeping on the beach.
The ranger knew this bear, and she's a cubless sow who visits this area frequently, and is very human habituated. Her fur was so thick, and luxurious that I almost wanted to reach out and pet her. She would wake up every once in a while, dig her hole a bit deeper, readjust her position and flop back down to nap.
Check out what's behind her across Pack Creek. Another sow with what looked like 3 year old cubs.
We were making up conversations about this family. The mom got in the water to fish, and the cubs just sat down on the bank and waited for mom to throw them some food. We called those two, the lazy teenagers who expected mom to wait on them. It wasn't happening, obviously they were old enough to fish for their own food. "Mooooom, we're hungry, hurry up, and get us something to eat!" "Get off your lazy duffs, and get your own fish, it's about time you were more independent, the den is getting a bit crowded!"
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| Give it to me, Mom! |
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| Eventually, everyone finally got their own fish. |
When the seagulls started to congregate at the mouth of the creek, all the bears took the hint, and went to fish the school of salmon that were entering.
Soon, the tide was coming in, and everyone lumbered off to take naps.
We also had deer so close, you could almost touch them. They were used to the humans hanging around, and may have felt safe around us. The bears didn't seem interested in them though, probably because they were so full of salmon.
Bill had to take his long lens off of his camera, they were too close to photograph, I just use my Lumix point and shoot. No complications.
This was a very successful excursion, bear wise anyway.
PS, our friends on Adventures have adventures, 😁, and she's a fabulous photographer, loves bears. Check out her blog in the list to the right in Boating Blogs we enjoy.
PPS, to get you in the Halloween mood, local decorations.
As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.
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