Dispatch From Alaska: "Do you want a rattlesnake to the face?"

As my friend and former co-worker at SNBR, Craig put it, “GORP attracts a mouse, and the mouse attracts a rattlesnake, the mouse runs near your head while you sleep, then the rattlesnake strikes you in the face, point being don’t sleep with food in the woods”. This was the way a struggling teen might understand why staff did not want them taking food to their shelters at night. As I mentioned earlier in one of my “Dispatch” letters, I tend to be a “believe it when I see it” guy on some topics, a part-time skeptic you might say. With that in mind, I am awoken this mourning by an animal walking around my tent.

For those who don’t know I am out of the truck, camping at Tanani Point which is 3 miles outside of Haines. I found a windbreak in a grove of Sitka Spruce trees and Alders, which is a hermaphroditic shrub that grows in re-covering areas before the Western Hemlock and the aforementioned Spruce assume dominance of this Temperate Rainforest in S.E. AK. The Point is a former fuel depot for the closed Fort Seward. I am not exactly sure what the squatter rights are here in AK, but the community at Tanani is 5 strong. Our “shanty” town includes a fire pit for evening gatherings and doubles as the kitchen, there is a wood pile, hammock and slack-line (tightrope) for recreation. There are eagles on the rocks in the AM, a Minke whale that comes round daily, sea lions, seals, harbor porpoises, surf scooters, a female Moose and here calf across the road inside the abandoned fuel tank fields and as of this mourning about 7 am a good size bear judging by the butt imprint it left after eating on some fresh greens under my “big blue” tarp about 3 feet away from my head.

As calm as I am in most situations, the idea of having a hungry, fresh from hibernation bear feet away from me while I am zipped up in my tent with rain fly thus not having a line of sight on the animal was nerve-racking. At first I tell myself it is a bird, because song birds have been coming around in the AM, but this is bigger than a bird. Next logical deduction is a stray dog, like the one that came into camp when I was with my Dad on a canoe trip in Michigan at a young age, but dogs tend to run through camp and sniff, this animal came in and took a seat. Is it Abby, Jon, Cory, or Lindsey one of my fellow co-workers and fellow squatters? I decide to make a little noise, with my sounds comes grunts and rustling from the animal. “Is that. . . it sure is a candy bar wrapper in my pocket, this time it might not be a rattlesnake to face but a bludgeoning slap from a brown bear. Damn, I am going to have to wait this one out, “do I have my knife if I should have to cut the tent and run”? “Was that a . . . yep that was a fart”, some large animal has decided to come and sit next to me and rip ass. 20 minutes pass by and the grunting seems to have moved, has the bear or whatever it is left? I grab my hat, put my keys and phone in my jacket, grab my Dickies pants and start to unzip the tent. Alright, no attack or grunting, I get the rain fly open and grab my rubber boots and take a quick look and there it is, the ass print in the spruce duff from a bear, visual evidence and I am on to the beach. Pants and rubber boots in hand I quickly get dressed and make my way to the fire ring and up to the other tents on the point. Turns out everyone is still there, I had thought briefly to text message one of them to come over and scare the bear off, but I figured that everyone was at work. I knock on the truck where one of the squatters is sleeping and ask if they want to go bear hunting? We make our way back through the trees and walk around my camp, no bear in sight, but the ass imprint in the ground is still there. Since my day-off started earlier than I expected, breakfast at the Bamboo room is in order. Once inside I over hear some locals talking about bear hunting season which is still open for black bear and ask if when a bear is seated it will leave an imprint similar to a humans, and his response is a definitive, “Yep” followed by, “where are you camped at?”

The day progresses with a good run, ½ gallon of Haines Brewery beer and a nap in the sunshine. I decide to go back to my tent, curious if the bear has come back. I approach slowly on the beach and whip a couple of rocks into camp . . . no movement. As I make my way into the camp, what could only be described as the smell from the bathrooms outfitted with a urinal trough at Fulton County Stadium in the late 1980’s combined with a Porta-Potty sitting out at the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race for 2 weeks has filled my “big blue” tarp. There it lies the fresh scat of Mr. Bear my new roomy, along with more depressions in the duff and paw prints. Abby, one of the tenants of Tanani Point, suggests, “Bears do not like to be uncomfortable where they rest, so let’s put some of the scrap vehicle parts (left on the beach from the military) where it likes to sit . . . maybe that will make it not want to return”. Anything at this point is worth re-claming my Sitka Spruce windbreak tent area. After we haul 6 awkward and discomforting metal objects into the camp, I balance an old Schlitz Malt Liquor can on the camshaft of a piece of heavy machinery and head back for the fire pit. If the bear returns he will have to knock over the can and the “Blue Bull” (Schlitz’s mascot) will stand guard. I decide to stay in the truck so that I am not up wondering when or if the bear will return.

Lesson of the story, general and accepted rules of doing different tasks exist in life because a common trend has been established. You will most likely see exemptions to the rule but not every time. Unless you want to come face to face with a rattle snake do not bring GORP with you to sleep in the lower 48 and there is nothing more comforting than sleeping with a sawed-off shotgun next to you while camping in Alaska as my boss tells me later that day when I talk with him about the morning’s events. Good thing that you can by shotguns at almost all general merchandise stores here in Haines, but I doubt that it will have to come to that. Plus the Canadian Mounties will not appreciate a Yank bringing my sawed-off “scatter” gun into Canada, they tend to belive it might spread American street violence in their peaceful country.


All the best,

Mike