Story emailed to family in 2007 by the woman telling the story. I got it from her husband, who was serving in Iraq with the Alaska National Guard at the time.
Incident occurred on Starr Hill, Juneau, Alaska.
The author titled it: “A Bear Story With a Happy Ending.”
Last night, about midnight, a sow and her two cubs visited our basement. The Mama opened the door (it’s locked now!), tried to maneuver a can that had garbage in it outside, then got herself trapped when the door shut (it opens in). I was awakened when the bear went inside, but I figured there was just one and it would grab the can and haul it to the bear dining hall behind the house. The rustling turned to banging in the basement and kept going on and on, and then I realized it wasn’t just one bear–there were two cubs outside, both screaming for their mama. At that point I sort of freaked, because that door from the basement doesn’t have a good latch on it and I had figured out the sow was trapped in the basement. went and locked the doors against the cubs and wedged the ironing board and that six-foot ladder against the door to the basement and the opposite wall, which probably would have kept her at bay for a little while if she got tired of throwing things at the basement door, and then I called 911. One of the cubs then climbed up on the front porch and I felt like it was the Juneau version of The Birds… “The Bears.” Beseiged by bears! I was essentially trapped in the house, an upset sow in the basement, and no solid latch on the door from the basement into the kitchen and two sad cubs wandering around the outside of the house crying.
The 911 operator was very nice to me. She kept saying, you are OK, right–the bear can’t get into the house? And I kept saying, “well, I think I’m OK,” and she was probably looking for a more solid answer so she stayed on the phone with me until the police showed up. A nice police lady came armed with her stun gun and by then the two cubs had given up on mama and disappeared into the back yard. At that point, we still didn’t know for certain where the sow was because things had quieted down in the basement, but a flashlight shined into the window (now cracked from where the cubs tried to get inside), showed the tagged sow looking forelornely from behind the oil tank. On the second try of gingerly opening the door for her then scooting around the corner, she managed to escape out and up the hill to find her cubs.
When I went upstairs to rouse [my teenage daughter], she said “A bear in the basement?” rolled over, and went back to sleep. A true Alaskan child. Good thing her mother was defending the homestead with the ironing board!
It wasn’t a very big bear, but quite dexterous. Not a good teaching experience for the cubs, however. For all that grief, they didn’t get any garbage.
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