Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey Into the Human Heart

by Lynn Schooler

  The wind puffed, and a shower of rain rattled on my hood. The temperature was dropping, but the high, clear note of being homeward bound was still playing in my head, and as I walked, I let myself drift into daydreams of how I might win my wife again. Maybe stop working so much, take a bicycle trip in Europe . . .

  I wish now that I had paid more attention to the otter’s warning.

  The description of what took place over the next few hours that follows here is as accurate as I can make it, though in truth the intense fear of those hours left my memory a jumble of sharp-edged images that continue to disturb my sleep even now, two years later, as I try to sort and assemble them. This shift in the narrative is abrupt, I know, but no more so than the plunge from whistling optimism to a desperate scramble for survival that took place not long after I left the previous evening’s camp.

  I was walking head down, with my chin to my chest, trying to avoid the pellets of rain being flung at my face by the southwest wind, when I looked up and saw a bear standing at the edge of the forest seventy-five yards away.

  I knew there was something wrong as soon as I saw it. It was facing the sea and standing so still that for a long moment I wondered if I was mistaken, if the dark shape might be a root wad or a boulder. The wind stirred the branches behind it, and waves broke on the beach in front of it, but the bear was completely motionless.

  I tilted my hat back to watch and leaned on the hiking poles. The bear did not react to my presence. It did not glance in my direction or assume any of the postures that are signs of stress or aggression. But in spite of its stillness it did not seem to be resting. A resting grizzly may sprawl on its back, curl up on its side, or flop down on its belly and nestle its head on its paws, but even a sleeping bear remains to some degree in motion; ears swivel and noses twitch as some part of the animal’s brain continues to sieve the atmosphere around it for information. This one was as still as the rain-darkened rocks. All it did was stare at the swells rolling in from the horizon.

  A worm of unease crawled into my belly. During the forty years I have lived and worked in Alaska, every one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black and grizzly bears I have seen was either feeding, searching for food, walking, running, fighting, or mating. Occasionally there is a burst of roughhouse play. But I had never seen one do absolutely nothing. And something about the stillness of this bear seemed to radiate tension the way a deranged, glaring stranger gives off a dark energy you cross the street to avoid.

  I shuffled, unsure of what to do. In the wild, for humans as well as for animals, anything odd or unknown may mean danger. This explains why a majority of the grizzlies I had seen since reaching Lituya Bay had run at the sight of me—most had probably never seen a human before—and I wondered why this one should be different. In any case, I wanted to get past it and continue on my way home.

  I started trying to convince myself that it simply hadn’t noticed me yet because the wind was blowing toward me. If I walked a bit closer or made some noise, it would sense me and bolt like all the others. But the longer I watched, the louder the alarm inside my head rang. The bear was too still, and its stillness was too strange. It had not shifted a millimeter since I had spotted it. Such a lack of activity was unfathomable.

  I had just made up my mind to back away quietly and give it time to come out of its paralytic state and wander off of its own volition when something overruled my decision. Whether it was an unconscious motion generated by my indecisive wavering or an eddy of wind that carried the odor of a man who has not washed in several days to the bear, I cannot know, but the response was instantaneous.

  The grizzly came to life as if a switch had been thrown. Its head jerked upright, and it turned to look at me. Then it started walking quickly toward me. It was not charging, but this was not the comfortable, ambling pace of a bear motivated by simple curiosity either, and the suddenness with which it transitioned from utter stillness to a rapid, intent gait unnerved me; a normal bear would have reacted by sniffing the air for a better scent of me, glancing around for other dangers, or, should it have decided that I was a threat, choosing an escape avenue. A bear may stand upright on its hind legs, but not, as popular lore would have it, in preparation for rushing forward and grabbing a victim in a “bear hug”; it’s simply trying to get a better view. Bears usually like to think things over before they act.

  Not this one. Everything about it gave me the creeps. I know that for this to be a proper bear tale, I should say it was a thousand-pound monster with gnashing teeth and slashing claws, but it wasn’t. As grizzlies go, it was rather small, perhaps three hundred pounds, maybe less, and as it dogtrotted toward me, I could see that it lacked the bulging musculature common to its species. Dreadlocks of matted hair hung from abnormally lean forelegs, and as it moved, I noted a peculiarity in its gait, as if its hindquarters were trying to outrun its forelegs by swinging out to one side.

  These were all bad signs. Nothing about this bear was normal.

  The alarm in my head escalated to a siren, and I had to will my feet not to run as I fumbled for the bear spray. Pepper spray has been proved relatively effective in deterring aggression, but “relatively effective” is a disturbingly weak endorsement when a fist-sized can is all that stands between you and a strangely behaving grizzly that is getting closer by the second. The two or three heartbeats it took to release the canister from its holster and raise it was also long enough for some part of my shrieking brain to remind me that the effective range of the spray is no more than thirty feet, pick a spot on the ground I estimated to be that distance away, and brace myself to fire when the bear reached it. In the next instant I had to abandon the plan because the moment I thumbed off the plastic trigger lock, a gust of wind hit my face. If I fired, the caustic spray would blow back into my eyes.

  The bear broke into a loose-footed lope, closing the distance between us so rapidly that I had no time to decide whether to move farther down the beach and try to circle upwind into position to use the spray, or to make a dash for the trees. Before I could do either, it was on me. Without thinking, I snatched off my wide-brimmed hat and held it over my head, yelling, “Stop!” in the loudest voice I could muster. In grizzly society size matters, and stretching myself upright was the only way I had to look bigger.

  The bear slowed to a walk but kept coming. It stopped no more than thirty feet away. Then its head dropped, and it sniffed at the ground. When it looked up again, there was something primitive and terrible in the way it stretched out its neck to peer at me. I felt like a rodent being considered by a snake.

  Streaks of rain runneled its forehead and muzzle. Its nose was a dark fist pierced by two nostrils. As I write this, I can still see its eyes, like flat black dimes, with no whites or “catchlight,” as wildlife photographers call the glint of reflected light that brings an eye to life. More disturbing yet was the way the rubbery black lip swung beneath its lower jaw. There was something obscene in how the fleshy pendulum moved out of synch with the bear’s stride as it started moving toward me again.

  I yelled louder, fighting to keep my voice from rising to a tremolo. The fight-or-flight response was kicking in, and flight was winning. It was all I could do to hold my ground, but I knew that if I turned to run or backed up, it might trigger an immediate predator-prey response.

  The bear stopped a few yards away. I could see the red glint of a deep cut over one eye, and when it gave an odd shake of its head, the wound seemed to wink at me. I forced myself to step forward, bluffing to show I felt no fear.

  In this case, the “courteous” approach I normally use with bears would have been as pointless as trying to charm my way past a drunken bar bully who was already advancing on me with an upraised pool cue. Instead I launched into a scold like a pet owner giving a misbehaved dog an angry talking-to, ordering, “Back up! Go away!”

  It seemed to work. The bear stood stock-still and stared at me, then shifted its weight from side to side and stared some more. The wind fla
pped the hood of my raincoat. It is odd how the mind works at such moments, but I remember noticing that the tide was turning; the surf was starting to run farther up the shore. Gulls rose and fell outside the breaking waves. The bear lowered its nose to the ground and sniffed, blowing like a horse. I could see its lips puff out with every snort.

  Now there is a tableau in my mind of the bear standing with its nose to the ground and myself poised with my hat extended like a flimsy shield. The spray makes a dull sword at my side. I have no idea how long the pause lasted; there is a record-skip quality to the memory, and the bear and I were both still and silent. I did not know what else to do. The only thing I had resembling a weapon was the plastic flare gun stuffed into a pocket of my pack, and I did not dare take off the pack to reach for it.

  Then suddenly it seemed the whole thing was over. The bear looked over its shoulder as if it had forgotten something, then started walking away. I did not move. I could hear the gulls and feel a sprinkle of cold rain against my face. Then without thinking, I put my hat on my head and, keeping my eyes on the bear, bent to pick up the hiking poles.

  This was a mistake.

  The bear stopped and turned back toward me, stared a moment, and looked away. For a long minute it looked left, then right, then left again, as if still trying to decide something. Then it started coming back for me.

  Fear took over, and I started backing up, moving at an oblique angle to the bear’s approach, trying to edge upwind. I stumbled on a loose rock and felt the weight of the pack shift. Juggling the pepper spray and hiking poles into one hand, I stooped to pick up the rock and reared back, yelling, “I’ll knock your fucking brains out!”

  It was trash talk. The squeals of a weakling. My antics had no effect on the bear except to turn it to the side, where it circled, moving to cut off my retreat. I changed direction, and the bear circled the other way. I moved again and it countered me. My back was to the surf. The next move would be checkmate.

  The notion of sprinting into the water, where the bear might not come after me, slipped through my mind, but I immediately rejected it as the vision of a wave hurling me back onshore followed; it could snatch me up like a stranded salmon. In any case, the potency of pepper spray can be greatly reduced if used against a soaking-wet bear; spray a grizzly as it climbs out of a river and it may not be effective. Using it in breaking surf would be pointless.

  A better plan would be to throw myself facedown on the sand and hope the bear would begin by biting at my pack instead of my limbs. I could cover my head and neck with one arm and fire the spray over my shoulder with the other, while trying to hold my breath and keep my eyes closed to save my mucous membranes; if I survived the mauling, capsicum burns to my eyes and lungs would compound my problems.

  I had no illusions about my chances of surviving. Prolonged circling, closing in like a shark, and refusing to be driven off, as this bear was doing, is textbook predatory behavior. This bear meant to eat me. And just as I was under no illusion regarding my hopes for survival, I was under none regarding how it would happen. Most predators kill fairly quickly: Big cats like the leopard go directly for the head, killing with a single bite that penetrates the brain; crocodiles seize their prey and drag it into deep water, spinning over and over to kill by trauma and drowning. Even in the extremely rare case of a giant snake such as an anaconda or a python hunting a human, the victim dies relatively quickly of cardiac arrest as blood flow is interrupted by the crushing pressure of the serpent’s coils.*

  Not so with bears. When a bear strikes, it simply rushes in like a locomotive with jaws and knocks its prey to the ground. Once the prey is down, the bear pins it with its paws and starts feeding. The worst of it is that a bear may not hurry, but rather, may take its time as it tears random mouthfuls from back, legs, buttocks, and shoulders, or goes in through the stomach for the organs. It does not care if you scream or for how long. It may even feed for a while, then wander away and come back later for another round.

  I threw the rock and missed, hitting the sand beside the bear, who seemed not to notice. I bent to grab another rock, and the unwieldy bulk of the pack prevented me from getting much arm in the throw. Nonetheless, the stone glanced off the bear’s back, and the animal went airborne, jerking around with such incredible speed that it appeared to turn inside out, landing on its feet, tail tucked and backing away as it looked around for the offending hand that had touched it.

  I picked up another rock and winged it. Missing, I bent and groped for another. The bear paused, as if pondering the phenomenon of invisibility, and took another step backward, ignoring me while it looked around in all directions. The fourth throw struck the protruding knob of its hip bone with a satisfying thunk, and the bear bolted, running for the woods so fast that its legs blurred. It smashed into a stand of alder at full speed and disappeared into the crackling underbrush.

  I lost no time grabbing my hiking poles and holstering the spray as I hurried away, moving as fast as I could through soft sand studded with boulders. I hugged the surf line, wanting to stay as far from the edge of the forest as possible, imagining the bear pacing me at a trot among the shadows.

  To abbreviate the tale, I should just say that I probably covered less than a mile over the next half hour, but it was enough for me to get my pulse down, swallow the sour taste of adrenaline that frothed from my stomach, and stop looking behind me every few seconds while I cataloged what I had learned; that the bear was apparently injured in some way (the cut over its eye and its odd gait) and that it might be starving (it was so lean its hips were visible). I was also unfathomably grateful to know that a hurled rock was apparently outside its experience or understanding; in the bear’s mind, the impact it felt when the rock struck was somehow connected to a threat coming from behind, and although probably not painful, it was still an “unknown” and something to be fled. So it ran and I escaped.

  But I was not easy on myself. My fear flipped over into a foot-stomping anger that I had become so cocksure from my previous harmless experiences with bears that I had readily accepted that the odds against an incident were heavily on my side. I kept kicking myself for having decided not to carry a gun. As I skirted a patch of alder and climbed over a drift log, I rehashed my careless bravado when Joel had offered me the .44 Magnum and I had declined, saying it was unnecessary and the extra weight would be too much for the trek.

  Four pounds. Maybe five with extra ammo. I threw some profanity in with the mental kicking and slackened my pace. My legs were trembling from the fading adrenaline. My knees and shoulders ached from the jarring of the heavy pack. I was safe, I thought, and I decided I had run far enough to take a break. I needed water and maybe a couple of aspirins.

  A drift log with the roots attached made a handy bench to sit down on, and I unbuckled the pack. I let the log take the weight, then eased out of the shoulder straps and lowered it to the ground, unstrapping the top and digging for the small waterproof bag that held my toothbrush, a small bottle of aspirins, and a partial roll of toilet paper. I was into the pack up to my elbow when I glanced back along the beach.

  The bear was perhaps two hundred yards away, nose to the ground, snuffling toward me like a bloodhound. I jerked upright and stared as it circled a rib of rock, nosed up the beach, and came on, working precisely along my trail with the unwavering intensity of a bird dog.

  In a panic, the mind blurs and seizes. The very words I needed to organize my thoughts disappeared. All I could think of was to run. But where? The bear would keep coming. I could not possibly run far enough or fast enough. I could climb a tree, but then what? I could not climb with my pack, and there was no time to hoist it out of the way before the bear would be on me. If I climbed a tree and left it on the ground, the bear would destroy it. Then I would be stuck in the wild with no tent, sleeping bag, food, or equipment. No way to survive. I also abandoned the impulse to dig out the handheld radio and call for help as fast as it surfaced; even if through some freak of atmospherics I di
d manage to raise a fishing boat or the Coast Guard, what could they do? It could take hours or even days to arrange a rescue.

  I cursed myself again for not carrying a weapon. It took my fear-addled brain a moment to remember the flare gun, the orange plastic pistol designed to fire aerial flares. Coast Guard regulations require every boat owner to carry one, and I had thrown it into my pack at the last minute along with two “meteor” shells, which are designed to streak aloft and burst like bright fireworks, and a third shell designed to create a cloud of orange smoke. I had thought they might come in handy to attract the attention of a passing boat or plane if I got stranded.

  I tore into the pack, scattering the contents and ripping open zippers until I found the gun and the flares. My hands were already shaking when I glanced up and saw that the bear had halved the distance. The plastic gun felt like a toy in my hands, and I dithered, trying to choose between a meteor shell and the smoke as the bear got closer. Again there was an odd moment of clarity in my senses, a surge of calm that made note of a single sandpiper running on toothpick legs along the edge of the surf, its head bobbing as it needled the sand. A raven called kla-hook from the trees. It is a hard thing to describe, but somewhere inside of me I heard my own voice say, “Use a meteor. Save the smoke.”

  It made sense. In mid-May there are eighteen hours of daylight at that latitude and only a brief period of darkness. If I was hurt, a cloud of orange smoke would be more visible to a rescue flight than the burning pinpoint of a meteor shell. In the same wave of clarity I also thought to grab the radio, place it in a small hollow where the trunk of the drift log met the roots, and lay the smoke shell beside it in case I was injured and needed to find them without having to think or search through the mauled remains of my pack. The bear spray went into the front pocket of my rain pants.