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Grizzly Bear Bob Page 1 of 3
We met Bob one cloudless, hot, late afternoon. I never thought I would be complaining about the heat in Alaska, but when the sun doesn’t set until 11:30 pm, and there are few trees, it can feel pretty relentless. We were taking an afternoon siesta in some slivers of shade that we had found under a tall pile of driftwood logs on the beach. Bordering the length of the beach are mounds of washed ashore logs, now white and smoothed by the sea. I stripped off my waders to air out my sweating legs and lied down with my head crammed under an upended, gnarly tree root. We were resting on a small bluff of sand that faces the ocean to one side, and the glacier fed river that feeds out into the ocean on the other side. This is the river that the salmon will eventually swim up and, like the bears, we were anxiously awaiting there arrival. The bay seemed on the brink of something big. All the animals had an anticipatory appearance of waiting. Packs of gulls and pairs of eagles were camped out at the river’s edge staring into the water, and it was common to see bears wading around the mouth of the river, peering down into the water for hours. The birds and the bears seemed to be willing the fish to arrive with their piercing and determined gazes into the water.
In the distance I noticed that there was a bear out in the water. I sat up to watch him, and realized he was running and splashing through the water. Grabbing my binoculars, I looked more closely. I realized that the bear wasn’t splashing around for fun, he was fishing. He sprinted, head down, eyes fixed, shoulders drawn, in pursuit of a fish. It was unmistakable- he was fishing! I tell John and we slip our waders back on and pack up our bags. We didn’t want to miss perhaps the first catch of the season, so we hurried to get going towards the river and the fishing bear.
When we got closer, I noticed that the fishing bear was adorable and quite comical looking. He had shaggy, stringy hair in that awkward molting faze, where clumps of fur dangle and hang off the body and a bear’s face looks really bald. He had two long, thick dread locks dangling from both of his ears like a pair of long ear rings. While his coat was a reddish, medium-dark brown, his ears were bright blond. His ears were also extremely round and placed on the very top of his head like Mickey Mouse ears. His radar ears and dreadlocks made us laugh, and we decided to name him Bob – for Bob Marley and for the fact that he was unbearably goofy looking and Bob seemed like a really dorky white guy’s name. He also had a beard of thin, fine hair underneath his chin that glowed orange in the sunlight. He was a goofy looking bear for sure, but we were about to see that this bear could fish!
© 2008 Jessica Teel |
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