June, 2008 - The Second Trip

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       The female looks in my eyes for a moment and I’m absolutly thrilled.  There is something indiscribably special about making eye contact with a bear – the magnetic moment where both bear and human register one another outside of their boundaries and roles as observor and observed.  There is so much behind their eyes that it is a special privelage when they see me as an individual, another animal, in their environment.  I can see the gears turning in her huge head, and she lifts off her round rump and starts to move in our direction.  Both our pilot (whose guiding several tourists), John and I instantly know what she’s doing – she has decided that the safest way to get away from this male is to sit right behind us!  Our pilot stands up on his knees and firmly tells her – “that’s close enough.”  She looks at him with an expression somewhat akin to dissapointment.  She raises her eyebrows and makes a tiny, half hearted movement to continue in our direction, as if well intentioned persistence to join our group might be turned into an invitation.  He tells her once again, “no, that’s close enough” and she immediately adopts a submissive looking posture by ducking her head and turning her face and then her torso away from us.  She takes two or three steps backwards, and then scurries off looking sheepish. 

    The tourists look in astonishment as bear and human have a peaceful and fully understood conversation, the wild bear’s face registering her complete understanding of our pilot’s request.  The simplicity of the exchange seems stunning to outsiders unaccustomed to the intelligence and extreme tolerance and politeness of the bears of Katmai.  They’ve learned that humans are safe and they are comfortable coming near us.  But they’ve also learned to respect requests that they refrain from getting too close.  Many of the females actually approach groups of people because they have learned some of the male bears don't like to go near humans (we first learned of this from a ranger in Brooks Falls).  That was what this female was doing - using us to avoid the approaching male.  Using humans as a tool to buffer themselves from male advances, female bears demonstrate a highly complex level of social intelligence. It sadens me that fear and misunderstanding prevents humans at large from having a deeper relationship, and hence understanding, with bears.  I know in my heart that so much more is possible.  

    We watch the female bear as she makes her way down to a shallow stream that slices through the meadow.  She slides down onto her belly in the cool water and splays her legs out behind her.  Completely flattened on her stomach, the soles of her feet facing up into the sun, she closes her eyes to take a nap.  Watching the female bear cooling herself off, our pilot tells us he’s seen bears in the heat take a nap completely submerged in the water with nothing but their nose and ears out of the water!  We laugh at this bear’s comical sprawl (actually a quite common position for the bears) and John asks if our pilot has seen the bear with the porcupine quills in her nose that we saw on our last day trip.  He tells us he has seen her, and that the quills have all fallen out of her nose and she’s doing just fine. 

    The well endowed grizzly male moves away from us, deciding to follow a female who is walking towards the back meadows.  John and I decide to part ways with the bear viewing group and head on our own towards a group of three bears grazing a short distance away.  I had noticed that two of the bears seemed to be involved in mating behavior, and I even saw them snuggling. 

    We head down one of the bear trails that runs the length of the back meadows and is comprised of individual grizzly footprints worn through the grass.  The ground is soggy and our heads are suddenly surrounded by a gigantic swarm of insects.  The tiny bugs are flying as one- a moving, swirling, mass of wings that is clearly following us.  We swat at the swarm with our hats, but they quickly regroup into the shape of a tornado.  Pausing for a moment we listen to the loud hum coming from the swarm.  It sounds like a low rumble of traffic you might hear off in the distance in a city.  We are puzzled as to what they are – they aren’t biting and lack the legs of a mosquito, but are too large to be white socks (tiny bitting flies).  They look to me like miniature dragon flies, an insect I don’t recall seeing in Alaska before.  John speculates that they could be male mosquitos since only females bite, but neither of us knows what they look like.  I had falsely assumed it was still too early in the summer for bugs.  I should have known better – that this watery world where land meets sea would be teaming with insects far earlier than our house at home.  We walk on trying our best to ignore the dark cloud of bugs following our every move. 

    We sit down in the grass off to the side of the sedge to watch two bears of almost identical size grazing.  The darker bear, who  we realize shortly is a male, moves often towards the female.  She is quite receptive and allows him to come very near.  They walk slowly a few paces at a time in tandem with the female leading the way, both bears pausing to rip out mouthfulls of grass and to chew.   

     The male follows the female bear’s every move, trailing several steps behind her as she gingerly moves around the meadow.  Then the male moves to the female and she doesn’t walk away.  He presses his snout into the thick hair of her rump, sniffing for several seconds.  The female remains still, and we wonder if they might actually mate.  The male sniffs and sniffs, and then the female sits down. 

    The male sits by her side and leans into her.  They rub their faces up against one another, snuggling and cuddling.  They sit shoulder to shoulder for several minutes, nuzzling their heads in each others fur.  They don’t end up mating, but we witness a physical tenderness between the two bears.  Their physical relationship clearly extends beyond mere copulation. 

       After sitting together for several minutes the female stands up and returns to grazing.  They make their way towards another female who eventually feels they are a bit too close.  She rushes towards them in an attempt to get them to back off.  Her tactic works and the mating duo veers off and heads towards a small creek flowing through the meadow.  Like all the mating couples I've observed, the male plods slowly behind the female, as if being led around on a leash by her.  We move too, since the lack of wind and the full sun has made the back meadow quite hot.  Everyone thinks we are crazy to complain about heat in Alaska, but I’ve stripped off every layer but one thin shirt and I’m still sweating and uncomfortable.  We can only imagine how hot the bears must feel in their shaggy winter coats.  Both bears dip down a small embankment and slip into the stream.

    We follow the two bears to the creek and a cool breeze blows off the ocean removing both bugs and heat.  The male bear lies down in the cool mud between the river and the meadow.  The female, now nice and wet, gets back to work eating.  John is boiling so he sits down in the creek bed to let the water cool him off through his waders. 

    Down stream I spot a huge blond head peeking over the fronds of beach grass.  It’s an extremely light colored bear napping in the grass.  She is absolutely adorable and sits up to check us out with sleepy eyes.  Satisfied that she only heard some innocuous humans, she plunks her head back down on her arm and resumes sleeping. 

    Sitting on the shore I’m mesmorized by the silver shimmers of light across the stream and the gentle rhythm of flowing water.  We finally are in a place with no human noises and it feels wonderful.  I gaze up at the mountains behind the meadows and spot for the first time this summer the patch of snow that forms the shape of a giant heart.  There is a thin layer of snow obscuring the rounded tops of the heart, but the shape is still recognizable.  My heart opens up like a laugh as I’m filled with love for the Katmai coast and all that is not human.  We sit quietly by the stream, surrounded on both sides by napping bears, until it's time to head back to the bush plane.  It’s time to go and I’m already anxious to return, to come back to this place that always feels like home.

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© 2008 Jessica Teel