Thursday, June 14, 2012

Bear, Beer and Biscuits on the Tozi

“If I slice up that cooked chicken breast from last week, heat it up in gravy and put together some biscuits, would you be willing to sit out in the Summer House and bake them?” I asked Jack.  It was already 9:30pm and we’d settled ourselves inside to listen for Trapline Chatter messages on KJNP, but we had yet to make supper plans.

The picture that says a thousand words - The Aftermath of the 1998 Bear
We’d lacked an oven inside our house on the Tozitna River since 1998 when one or more black bears had ripped our full sized propane range apart in a wild orgy leaving the kitchen floor six inches deep in a mixture of beans, flour, rice, and bear urine, not to mention tearing cupboards off the wall and breaking or denting a good number of dishes and cookware.



It was now 30 May 2012 and we’d mostly recovered from that incident, having accepted that all foods had to be stored in the cache when we are not in residence, which is all of the year except a month in the spring and another in the fall.  Jack had taken the extra step of installing a solar powered bear fence six feet out from and completely surrounding the house. 

We had replaced the stove with two propane burners and got along with a funky stove top oven for ten years until 2008 when I purchased a Coleman propane camping oven with warnings that it not be used inside.  It was installed along with a camping stove in the plastic and screen covered Summer House which has lots of ventilation but allows for monitoring cooking and baking inside and away from mosquitoes.

The Summer House
The Summer House is located on the river bank some 50 yards from the house.  It has plastic or screen windows on its west and north corners allowing a view of the river and the bluffs across the river as well as the forks upstream where the Little Tozi joins Dagislahkna Creek for its 60-70 mile meander to empty into the Yukon River.  Last summer Jack had put in a screened window on the south side to allow for a cross breeze to avoid baking ourselves when the sun hangs low over the bluffs to the west and heats the Summer House to temps that make it ideal for taking showers even in early spring and early autumn if we drop the plastic window coverings over the screens.

A few days earlier I had mentioned once again my concern that the east wall had no window.  “What if there’s a bear between us out here and the house?” I asked Jack.  “Don’t you think we should have one of the rifles out here?  You’ve got that Weatherby 300.  Couldn’t we put that out here?  You’d still have the 45-70 in the house.” 

“If that’d make you happy, bring it out,” he said.  So I’d brought it out and Jack hung it on a peg on the east wall; and there it hung on the evening of the 30th when Jack dutifully supervised the baking of four biscuits in the Coleman oven while nursing a beer and reading his book as he lounged in his chair on the bank of our slough inside the Summer House.  He and I checked back and forth with each other on hand held radios.

“Keebler Kookie,” he radioed, “how’s the rest of the stuff doing?  The biscuits are just getting a little brown on top.”

“Everything else can be ready when they are,” I answered.  “Just bring them in when you think they’re done.”  I’d just turned the burner off under the sliced chicken and gravy when I wondered if Jack had pot holders with which to carry the small aluminum sheet on which I’d placed our four biscuits.  “Big Beaver,” I called on my radio, “Do you have something you can use for potholders?”  Getting no response I thought he must already be on his way into the house with his hands full. 

I headed for the stairs and looked out the workshop window through which I would expect to see him approach as I descended the stairs into the addition.  Not seeing him out that window, I called again on my radio, “Do you have potholders?”  Still getting no answer I crossed to the door on the other end of the wall of the addition that faces the Summer House, but from which it is no longer possible to see much of the Summer House because of the wood shelter.  Looking out the window of the door, I was able to see Jack standing at the southwest corner of the Summer House with the 300 Weatherby in one hand and his radio in the other.

As I opened the door I heard him say, “Damn, I was on channel 18.  She didn’t hear a thing I said about the bear!” I called to him from the door asking what’s going on.  “Did you see the bear?” he asked.

“What bear? Where?”

“Never mind, I’m coming in.  I’ll explain it to you when I get there.”  Back on Channel 17 on his radio, he said,  “Damn, I lost a biscuit outside.”  Then Jack’s voice came over my radio,  “Wait, no, here it is on the floor.  I was sure I dropped it outside.  It’s just a little stepped on.”

I waited at the door and watched him traverse the path from the Summer House with the sheet of biscuits in one hand and a glass of beer in the other.  As I held the door for him I could sense an adrenaline rush.  “Are you okay?  What’s this about a bear?” 

“I need to sit down,” he said as he placed the sheet of biscuits on the table next to his plate and headed with his beer to his recliner.  I noticed one biscuit half crushed.  I picked up one of the undamaged biscuits and dropped it onto my plate.

“Those are yours,” I said as I gestured toward the damaged biscuit and the remaining good ones.

At first, when we’d sat down at the table to eat he looked down at the plate on which he’d smothered his biscuits with chicken slices and creamy rich gravy.  He said, “I can’t eat all that.”

“Oh, you probably can,” I said.  “When you’re flooded, your digestive system shuts down.  As a matter of fact, all the systems do except the ones needed for fight or flight --  like, blood rushes to your arms and legs and your heart rate goes up.”

“I guess that’s right,” he said.  “I sure didn’t feel like pooping.”  Throughout our meal, bits and pieces of Jack’s most recent encounter with a bear came out.  By the time we were ready to leave the table, his plate was clean.  We moved into the living room where I pulled out my computer and got ready to take dictation.

“Okay,” I said, “now let’s hear it from start to finish.”

As I was walking toward the house I thought “I could have called Karen on the radio,” -- but oh well, she was expecting me.  With both hands full and the biscuits balanced on a flat aluminum sheet I was . . . concentrating pretty steadily on the balanced biscuits.  . . . I came around the end of the wood pile, still concentrating on my biscuits.

. . . [V}ery suddenly my vision was filled with a big pile of jiggling wiggling fur.  I could see feet up in the air, couldn’t really see the head, but at some point, realized it was a bear on its back, feet up in the air, wriggling and scratching right in front of the house door.  At that point we were probably [ten to twelve] feet apart. 

[My] thought process was pretty garbled, but I did an immediate 180.  My first thought was, “‘With all that jiggling, I don’t think he’s seen me.”  I’m sure a bystander watching would have been very amused as I was digesting the information my eyes had sent to my brain -- I guess the limbic system is what turned me around.  Then the frontal part [of my brain] tried to assess what was happening and what should happen in the future.

. . . [I]n that process came the memory of Karen bringing the 300 Weatherby rifle out to the Summer House [a few days ago] after saying, “Well what if we went out of here and there was a bear between us and the house?”  I thought it was a little overblown at the time, but discretion being the better part of valor, I supported the idea of leaving the loaded rifle hanging on the wall of the Summer House. 

I’m also trying not to spill the goddam biscuits.  I’m heading back to the Summer House and the rifle at top speed while trying to balance 4 biscuits on a slippery plate and carrying a beer in the other hand.  I felt like a waiter trying to balance fifteen glasses of champagne on a tray.  A very brief thought flitted across my mind -- “you’re carrying food that would smell good to a bear.”  That thought didn’t go far. 

I rounded the Summer House corner [and] popped the door open. One of the biscuits hit the floor.  The other three and the beer I set safely down on a table by the door --  [I] couldn’t imagine messing up Karen’s biscuits.  The rifle [was] hanging exactly where it was supposed to.  I cranked a shell into the chamber.  [F]or the previous 10 feet I [had been] trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do next. 

[I] grabbed the radio and said, “Karen this is really important.  There is a grizzly bear right outside the door.  Don’t go outside.  I’m in the Summer House and I’ve got the 300.  Stay inside.”  I put the radio back in my pocket and went out the door and turned left. 

I figured I’d get the best view of the front of the house from that direction.  As I looked around the corner, I saw the bear come running from behind the wood pile.  I raised the rifle, but [then] realized it was running out of the yard along the four wheeler trail.  I never did want to shoot it. But I didn’t know if I might have to. I waited until the bear was on the trail headed for the airstrip before I yelled, “Get! Get outta here!  Get the fuck out of here!” as I grew braver.   

I took the radio out of my pocket and said, “Karen, did you see that bear?”  As I looked down at the radio, I saw it was on channel 18, not 17.  So, she hadn’t gotten my earlier message. 

I switched to 17 and repeated, “Did you see the bear?”  She said, “No I didn’t hear anything. What happened?” 

I said “I’ll be in the house and explain it then.” 


As Jack finished up his account, I realized I’d missed seeing a grizzly bear enjoying a nice scratch no more than six feet from where I stood at the door seconds after its departure.  Since the bear was heading south by the time Jack came out of the Summer House, we tried to figure what would have roused it from its relaxing dirt bath between the wood shelter and the bear fence.  It could have been the sound of Jack throwing the bolt of the 300.  Another possibility was the sound of my voice as I descended the stairs into the addition asking Jack if he had potholders.
6 Sept. 2009 Bear

Jack thought this bear looked very much like the grizzly that visited us on the slough in front of the Summer House 6 September 2009 -- only a little bigger.  We’ve had other indications that our yard has been used as a spa over the past couple of years by one or another bear or bears.

Perspective on Height of Scratch
A tree alongside the four-wheeler trail into the yard bears evidence of its use as a scratching post -- both for the bear-back and the bear claws.

Bear Claw Scratch on Tree
Bear Hair on Tree












Future Bear Bathing Pool?


 There’s a considerable hole dug out behind the cache where we used to store a leaking barrel of lamp oil.  Jack’s surmise is that it’s the beginning excavation for a bear swimming pool. 






A few yards in front of the cache there’s a 6-8 foot diameter bare spot on the ground that Jack thought when we found it in the spring of 2011 was either a moose piss hole or a rolling, scratching and dirt-bathing spot. It was similar to the one left by our most recent spa guest on 30 May 2012 which is shown below between the wood pile on the left and the opening of the solar-powered bear fence on the right.  That fence is about six feet from the house.  Jack's position when he first encountered the "wriggling jiggling" furry thing smoothing out the trail in front of the house was at the far corner of the wood pile.


A couple of days after the bear's visit, we went down the trail along which it had departed and onto the gravel bar where Jack found and photographed its tracks.  The object in the photographed tracks is a 45-70 rifle shell.