Studio 47 Photography Photo Blog

For those that don’t know, this past summer I was very fortunate to have a chance of a lifetime for anyone who enjoys the great outdoors and the wildlife it sustains.  On a whim after reading a short paragraph in my Outdoor Photographer Magazine last winter I decided to enter the lottery that is run by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (Information here).  The lottery is for a chance to buy a viewing permit that gets you front and center with the Alaskan Brown Bears that visit the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Refuge. (Note: In case there is any confusion, these are the large coastal variation of what most folks in the lower 48 refer to as grizzly bear, although don’t you dare use that term in Alaska!!)

Somehow I was selected.  My wife made a special trip to surprise me at work with the letter from the Alaska DF&G (you can read her account of getting the letter in the mail here.)  What made it more of a surprise is that they had stated notice would be done by mid-March by email and mail.  Well, mid-March came and went with no notification.  I had been meaning to check the website but seemed to only think about it at inconvenient times. I had pretty much written it off, so I was speechless when she showed up with the letter.  I knew we had to go.

A little bit about McNeil.  Its only accessible by float plain or boat, but I didn’t find any charter boat service to get you their.  It protects about 200 square miles and is located 100 air miles west of Homer Alaska in the Katmai National Park.  The sanctuary constitutes one of the largest densities of Alaskan Brown Bear.  Each summer these wonderful beasts populate the sanctuary to feed on the sedge grasses abundant along the coast and fish for spawning Salmon as they make the runs up the McNeil River and Mikfik Creek as they empty into the Kamishak Bay.  Five different types of Salmon make the run up those creeks resulting in some fat and happy bears come winter time.

Anyways, what the permit gets you is 4 days for bear viewing (unless you are selected for an alternate slot, which only guarantees you access to the camp, not the viewing platforms).  Having been there now, that in itself probably would be an amazing experience as the bears are everywhere.  They only draw 13 permits for each viewing block, 10 guaranteed and 3 alternates.  The alternates get to go out if the 10 daily slots aren’t filled for some reason or another.  They tell you that if you want to maximize your 4 days of viewing to arrive the day before and plan to leave the day after.  Everything is controlled by the tide as access is only available at high-tide.  The weather is also a roll of the dice which can effect your ability to get out by small plane, so plan accordingly and bring extra food in case you’re there a while.  There certainly isn’t any place to find there.  You are “in the bush” when you are there.  There is “cook” cabin that is provided where you store all your food and all of the cooking is to take place.  One would be surprised how luxurious a very primitive cabin can be.  After a day in the bitter wind and rain the wood stove and a dry floor to peal off the layers is like heaven.  The fact that they provide propane stoves to do the cooking with is just a bonus.

All sleeping is in your tent though, and contrary to what I thought I had read, there is no electric fence or wire to keep the bears out of camp.  They are free to roam wherever.  We were cautioned though that if a bear was in camp we were to use the air horns we were given when we arrived. Apparently the bears are pretty responsive to the loud noise and mind their business.  Although there were traces left behind that bears had entered the base camp area at night, I never saw nor heard them.  In fact I’m sure my sleeping probably scared them off thinking it was a n angry bear in the tent.  Oh, and this reminds me of the age old question.  “Does a bear sh!t in the woods?”  As far as I can tell, they sh!t any dam where they feel like it, and they feel like it a lot.

All this leads up to my first night at the reserve.  As we rolled out of the float plane (I used Beluga Lake Float Plane Service) after a very uneventful, but exciting just the same, trip over the Kachemak Bay, we were greeted with the view of a Mama with her cub, grazing along the beach area.  Right off the bat I was excited and nervous.  Here they were up close and personal, yet everything I had read said this was the most dangerous situation, a mama and her cub.  With little fan fair they kind of went about their way, moving off down the beach, barely registering our existence.

We were met by Tom, the head guide with the ADF&G, who on first impression was a madman, and I mean that with all the respect in the world.  He proceeded to load all of our gear into a wheelbarrow and take off down the beach at a pace I could barely maintain in the relatively soft sand.  How he was doing it pushing a wheelbarrow that had to have almost 200 lbs of gear in it is beyond me.  I guess he had lived many years with the creed of, you don’t have to be the fastest, just not be the slowest!  HA, old bear chasing joke.

So I’ll end Part I here I guess, and pick this up tomorrow night.  Here’s one of my favorite pictures from the trip.   The ADF&G service (or the researchers) name many of the bears so they can be identified by the various people that come and go doing research.  This one was named Jordan, who was an adult male tipping the scales at probably around 1100-1200 pounds.  We had the pleasure of watching Jordan fishing for Red Salmon in Mikfik Creek for about 30 minutes before he got his fill and moved off into the woods.  Jordan was a common sight during my stay.  As you can see in the picture he was keenly aware of our presence but beyond checking us out every now and again, he fished without concern and came as close as 10-15 feet at times as he went up and down the creek chasing fish. I hope you enjoy and come back and check out Part II tomorrow.

Jordan

Canon 50d, ISO 400, Canon 100-400L @ 400 mm, f7.1, 1/320 sec