The Bear Story
While I have had many encounters with Kodiak bears, or, as they are affectionately known, brownies, this remains my definitive interaction with a member of the ursine population of the island. It is fairly common knowledge that a sow with cubs is, potentially, the most dangerous bear to run into. This is a story about how there are always exceptions to the rule.
This was my fifth autumn in the village, and the weather had been spectacular in the way only Alaska can pull off; crisp temperatures had turned the birches and cottonwood a brilliant gold that shimmered against a cerulean sky in the breezes. It was afternoon, the two babies and my oldest were in the house with me, and my #2 child, Naomi was in the back “yard” playing with her little cars, studiously making a village with a complicated road system in the dirt the way only an eight year old can do, and my (ex)husband was working on the four wheeler in the driveway. A friend had gotten a moose over on the mainland and he had given me a bag of scraps to give to my dogs. Being as it was early afternoon and that there was a lot of activity in the village I decided it was a safe time to feed them the moose meat, so I did, and then I went back in the house.
This is an important aside. As most of the houses in the village, my property had an ancient established bear trail running through it from the bush down to the beach. While I lived in that house only one bear used that trail on a daily basis, a sweet natured sow with three cubs in their second year. Mama would be kicking them out onto their own in the spring, so these were not cute and cuddly cubs. These were more than half grown brownies, as curious as puppies but not knowing their strength yet. I ran into this family daily, sometimes almost literally. It is safe to say that the sow and I were both acquainted and accustomed to each other, and we each seemed to respect the fact that we were both mamas with young ones.
The next thing I knew the doors slammed and Naomi was in the kitchen freaking out. It seems that while she was playing she had heard rustling in the tall grass but had dismissed it as being the dogs. Until she heard a “woof” and looked up to see mama bear no more than ten feet away from her, and the cubs sniffing around right behind her. She stood up slowly, as they had taught her in school, and mama stood up, woofing and popping her teeth. Naomi began to slowly back up, again as she had been taught, and mama dropped to all fours and began to approach Naomi, who then decided that all this stuff she had been taught was bunk, and she turned and ran around the house as fast as she could, passing my ex, and as she ran she said “There is a bear in the backyard” then she was in the house, slamming doors and hollering about the bear. I told the kids to stay in the house and to keep an eye on the babies, and ran out to help my ex deal with the bear.
When I got to the deck my ex was nowhere to be seen, so I ran down the stairs and headed to go around the house to the right. As I turned the corner there came mama and cubs; we all put on the brakes and turned tail and ran back the way we had come. As I got back around to the front my ex was there and I told him to get his rifle and shoot (up in the air) and scare her off. We both went in and he grabbed the .270 and ran to the backyard, where mama and cubs were now standing. My ex began to shoot into the air, and with each blast the bears merely looked at him in a manner that was, to me, reminiscent of the way cows will stare at you from their pasture. I told the kids to get my cast iron frying pans, and I leaned out the window the way my native “mom” taught me and beat those frying pans together and yelled my fool head off at them. That got their attention, and they took off into the bush behind my house.
I grabbed a bag and went outside and packed up all of the moose scraps and my ex and I got on the four wheeler and rode up to the dump where we tossed the bag. Then we cruised around the village, letting people know that there was a sow with cubs roaming about. After that we went home and had a perfectly boring day, although with the adrenalin I had not noticed that I had been stung several times by yellow jackets while I was picking up the meat.
The next morning my ex had planned to go hunting, so we got up early, and while he went down to gas up the skiff and get it prepped I fixed a lunch and snacks for him. The kids had all slept in the living room on the sofa bed, so I took the food and a plastic garbage bag out to the deck so I wouldn’t wake them up as I packed the food into the bag, as my intention was to go right back to bed after my ex was gone. I heard some clattering and looked at the next house over, and sure enough it was mama and cubs digging through the neighbor’s garbage cans. I quietly put the food back in the house and closed the door, and then went back around and down two steps to watch her. Even when they are doing something that, imnsho, diminishes their grandeur, they are still truly magnificent creatures.
Finally one of my dogs caught their scent and began to go apeshit. Mama swung her head up, saw me, and broke into a full on charge.
Time gets weird when a 1,200 pound brownie is charging you. By the time I had gone up two steps and had my hand on the door knob she had cleared the distance between up, a good 50 feet, and was at the bottom of the stairs, woofing and popping her teeth.
I went in through the front door, slamming it shut behind me, repeating the action with the mudroom door. I ran to the bedroom, and I must have been making some kind of noise as the kids all woke up and began freaking out. I grabbed the big firecrackers (M80s) to try and scare her off, and then thought to stop and look out of my bedroom window to see where she was, as I really didn’t want to open the front door and find her standing there.
The house I was living in was a HUD house, and for all the master bedrooms the windows swung out, and there was a ledge about 5 ½ feet from the ground which was to serve as a fire escape should we need one. As it was a gorgeous morning I had the window fully opened to let in fresh air. I placed my hand against the wall and leaned over to see the three cubs playing in the middle of my front yard. “Dammit!” I thought to myself. “I bet she is on the deck!” and with that I swung my head out of the window – at the precise moment she swung her head into my window, presumably to see where I was.
She had one paw on the side of the house, the other on the ledge. Our faces were four inches apart, no more, no less. Time went into mega slow motion; with her mouth hanging slightly open her breath was blowing my hair back from my face, and I could see myself reflected in her eyes. I could not breathe; we just stood there, each of us frozen in the shock of the moment. It felt as though an eternity passed with the two of us standing there, nose to nose, those 6 inch claws splayed on the ledge in my periperal vision, her teeth visible enough to tell that she was still a young bear, with good, strong teeth and jaws. I had read the stories of maulings and so I knew that she could open her mouth and crush my skull, or with one swipe of her paw she could knock my head clean off my shoulders.
Finally I was able to take in a breath, and on the exhale I began screaming at her, using words I won’t repeat here. Her eyebrows went up in such a comically human fashion, and her eyes widened in surprise. At that point I blank out, but the next thing I was aware of was that they were gone.
I met my ex in the driveway and told him what had happened, needing some comfort after such a scare. Instead he laughed and said “Sow versus sow, I feel sorry for the bear!”
So my mumper family, that is The Bear Story, and with all of the encounters I had with brownies up there I do consider the brown bear (and the raven, but that is for another day) to be my totem, or spirit animal. I remember when I was new to the Dope and I believe it was in the MMP that I mentioned being a bear, and was rather gently instructed by swampy and a few others about the significance of bears in the gay community, which I found most interesting, as I appreciate a bearish man myself! 
Now that you have had your morning story, hijack away!
that I was able to be a part of your human bear edjookashun. 
I’ve got weeding and a little planting to do - not sure how much I’ll do or how long I’ll do it. We shall see…