No Room For Junk Food in the Bear Cooler
Cooking in the Alaska Backcountry, Woman vs. Bear
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
et us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling…let us go
-The Call of the Wild, Robert Service from Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses
There is an enduring mystique to Alaska and the Yukon. The high peaks, untamed wilderness, fresh seafood and berries.
Alaskans love to partake in the bounty offered by this vast landscape. There’s nothing better than fresh, wild-caught king salmon grilling over an open fire.
You know what also enjoys that wonderful fresh fish and sweet berries ripened under the midnight sun?
Oh yeah…the wild life. Particularly bears.
I’ve seen the debate raging on the internet, which would women rather be alone in the wilderness with, a man or a bear? For me, it’s a reality. The bears are a part of my everyday existence at my off-grid cabin.
There’s a joke in Alaska. Okay, it’s not really a joke.
Step off the bus, and into the food chain!
There’s a challenge to having an off-grid cabin and cooking in the Alaska Backcountry. My husband and I definitely enjoy good food and wine. When guests come to our cabin in Chicken, Alaska, or on camping trips, they rave about our meals. We prepare everything from New York Steaks, Brisket, Smoked Ribs, Spaghetti Bolognese, Pozole and many other delights.
It’s disconcerting to think that whenever I turn on my stove at to cook a meal, and send those delicious aromas out, I am potentially summoning the wildlife. We literally keep a can of bear spray and a shotgun next to the stove in the cook shed at all times. We also keep weapons in the main cabin. While we have had to harry the bears away, we (fortunately) have never had to shoot one.
Whenever you bring food into the back country, you have to be aware of the wildlife. There’s an expression:
A fed bear is a dead bear.
When a bear becomes habituated seeing people as a source of food, it becomes a danger. To keep bears from easily accessing food or becoming a meal ourselves, we have to be careful how food is stored and transported.
Bear Encounter #1
We’ve had several encounters with bears at our cabin. One of the most memorable was when my parents were visiting from California one summer. My mother and I had just cooked breakfast in the cook shed.
If you’ve never camped, lived or cooked in bear country, you do not store or cook food in the place where you sleep. Bears have an acute sense of smell. They will be drawn to the food, even if it is stored in cans or in a “bear resistant container” like the one shown below:
Notice how I didn’t use the expression: Bear-Proof.
Space is limited in the cooler. We have to be very cognizant of what we pack, so we meticulously plan our meals for every trip. We have to save space for the important things…like wine!
Okay, but what does this have to do with a bear encounter?
It was a beautiful morning. Everyone was filling their plates with delicious scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes with fresh picked blueberries.
I was already sitting on the porch which faces to the north. My husband was starting up the stairs with his plate.
He glanced up our driveway (behind the cabin, facing to the south) and froze. A second later, he threw his plate onto the porch and yelled a few garbled words. He then grabbed the rifle and took off running up our driveway.
I was at a complete loss for words. Something was obviously wrong but I had no idea what. I rose, placed my plate on my chair, retrieved his from where he tossed it*, and followed.
No food or bears were harmed in this incident.*
My mom was still over at the cook shed. She pointed south and yelled, “bear!”
Then it clicked. I grabbed the pistol as back-up. At that point, the two black bears that had been cruising down our driveway had decided our food was not worth the trouble and fled. We all had a good laugh about the two bears and how fast they left.
But didn’t they really want your food? You just said bears are attracted to the smell of food and implied they might attack and eat you too.
This goes back to bears that are not habituated to people will typically scare easily and leave when you make noise.
Typically…
But what about the ones that don’t scare easy?
Now we get to bear encounter #2…about a week later.
About a week later, August 10th to be exact, it was only myself, my husband and my father in law, Shep. It was Shep’s birthday and we were wrapping up after eating dinner and getting ready to head to the Chicken Creek Saloon in town because the bartender had made a pie to celebrate.
We had spent the entire day installing flooring in the cabin. Ray and Shep were putting away the saw, and I stepped out onto the deck.
A full-grown, male grizzly (brown bear), who had unfortunately become habituated to humans had wandered into our camp, probably attracted to the smell of dinner we had cooked earlier. At this point, the bear was about 300 feet from the cabin, checking out a tent platform we have for guests.
“Ray, there’s a bear,” I told my husband, who hadn’t seen it yet.
“What?” Ray said, not understanding me. He came up onto the deck.
“Ray, there’s a bear!” I pointed toward the bear. It looked at me when I said bear. It knew its name.
At this point I’m got nervous.
Bears can run approximately 30–35 miles per hour at top speed. That means if this grizzly decides to charge, he’s going to be at the porch in about 6 seconds.
“What are you talking about?” Ray looked at me instead of where I am pointing.
I lost my cool.
“Ray, there’s a mother f — ing bear right there!” When I shouted the third time, the bear reared up on his hind legs. Ray saw it then and reached for the rifle.
Yogi decided that our food wasn’t worth it. He dropped down on his hind legs and sprinted away.
Bear Country
Those haven’t been our only encounters with family Ursidea, but some of our most vivid. We are humans living in bear country, not the other way around. the best way to defend ourselves against bears is to keep the bears wild and from becoming habituated to seeing humans as a source of food. We do this by:
Packing our food in bear resistant containers
Properly disposing of food waste and trash
Making noise while hiking to alert bears and not startle them (they are more afraid of you than you are of them)
Don’t harass females with cubs
Then it’s time to kick back with a beverage and enjoy the beauty of the Alaska wilderness.
Thanks for reading!