The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told

by Jay Cassell

  I know the feeling, having stood my ground against wolves years ago when I bagged my first caribou. My hunting friends J. W. Smith and Kristin Melby had heard the wolves howl after I shot the animal in late afternoon. As the sun was setting over the north Pacific, they had to head down to base camp, but promised to return the next day with the aircraft. I wasn’t about to leave my trophy or the meat. They handed me an orange, some snacks, and an extra jacket. The wolves smelled the fresh meat, and moved in close, but stayed out of sight in the alder brush. That night, the wind picked up to about 20 mph, which made hearing difficult. I hauled the meat to a gully, where I built a fire from brush. The wolves continued to howl through the first portion of the evening, before becoming silent.

  It is the not-knowing that is nervewracking when watching a pile of fresh meat. I huddled over my fire, feeding it pencil-sized sticks. Sleep had eluded me for much of the night, and dawn finally arrived. My friends flew back and landed on the ridge top, and said they had seen no sign of wolf in the area. But then again, there was neither any sign of the caribou gutpile and bones at my killsite on the nearby ridge.

  Wolf hunters generally have at least one wolf rug, mount or tanned hide in their possession. I have a wolf rug hanging in my library den. This is a fitting locale, as the wolf bespeaks intelligence, and yet is as elusive as wisdom. I often think of the positive qualities that make it a wolf: its social tolerance, perseverance, patience, and adaptability. In many ways, the wolf is a fitting role model for humans, as well as a reminder of our own limitations as hunters. Wolves are better equipped than men to kill prey. Wolves can run faster and better withstand severe cold. All men have going for them is intellectual capacity. Unfortunately, many hunters don’t make full use of it. Wolves do. Only if it competes with humans for prey do we view a wolf as a pest that needs to be controlled. Wolves must be kept in check it we are to maintain healthy game populations for subsistence, sport hunting and wildlife viewing, as well as stocks of domestic animals and pets.

  Try wolf hunting this season and see if you are wolf-hunter tough. The spur, the tonic that initially creates a wolf hunter is to hear the unmistakable call of a lone wolf. Indeed, this “call of the wild” is a simple, yet complex communication of one predator speaking to another: the language of hunters that only another hunter can truly understand. Nodding one’s head in respect to the call is all a wolf hunter can do, and perhaps recall a few lines from Robert Service’s “Heart of this”:

  “I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend; Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out, yet the Wild must win in the end.” Alaska wolf hunters ensure the wild does win. As humans fail to domesticate wild adult wolves, so does city life fail to domesticate the human hunter. Each hunting season, we each answer the call of the wild, just as the wolf does each day when stalking its prey. We know and accept that there is no taking the thrill of the hunt out of either of us.

  As a result, any wolf hunter worth his bacon and beans would never advocate altogether eliminating the wolf from its wilderness environment. His desire is not only out of respect for the wolf and the hunt, but also for a greater purpose that Henry David Thoreau sums up best:

  “For in wildness is the preservation of the world.”

  Christopher Batin is a resident of Alaska, and editor and publisher of Alaska Hunter Publications. He is also the author of the award-winning book, Hunting in Alaska: A Comprehensive Guide, which includes a detailed chapter on how to hunt Alaska wolves.

  Night of the Brown Bear

  CHRISTOPHER BATIN

  Have you looked over your shoulder lately? There is a beast that lives in the rural forests, a beast that often watches you without you knowing; perhaps as you fish a stream, or maybe as you hunt birds in the local forest. This beast has stalked and killed sportsmen, ambushing them when they least expect it. And there’s one out there now, waiting for you, as you head out on your hunting trip with friends.

  You don’t recognize the visible and invisible signs as you drive the gravel road to the forest campground: the remains of a moose that died months ago from winter starvation; a poor berry season; your bullheadedness in taking a shortcut through the dense brush rather than the trail to the campsite. Maybe it’s the music blaring away through the headsets that will change your destiny. Enough. Separately, they are unrelated elements of historical insignificance. Unrelated until the Hand of Fate, and your complacency, lead you from the city and all its safeguards and place you onto the path that leads into the Night of the Brown Bear.

  As you walk through the wilderness, too impatient to wait for your hunting buddies as they gear up, know this: what you’re about to experience is a horror so intense that it can mentally and physically scar you for life—that is, IF you manage to live through it. Hundreds of people have been maimed and/or killed by brown bear. The numbers are not great. But when you are one of those numbers, it is one too many.

  Non-aggressive encounters of camp robbing and stalking are frightening enough. Brown bears have different reasons for killing. Some are rogues who are afraid of nothing, not even man. Others are predators, stalking anything that moves in the night, including hunters. A brown bear is so strong that it can snap the neck of an 800-pound moose with one swipe. These become territorial bears, and will attack and maim unsuspecting humans and other bears who get too close to their kills. And of course, there are always those bears that attack just because they are plain, outright mean. You’re about to walk into a bear that is all four.

  The bear sways slowly in the brush, nose twitching as it guards a rotting moose carcass. Its eyes pierce the darkness, waiting, watching for the source of the footsteps. As you approach, the boar drops his head, and pooled-up saliva oozes out in bubbly strands and globs onto rotting alder leaves. As your music blares away through your headsets, you never hear the explosion of brush, or see the 1,200 pounds of rippling muscle and hide traveling toward you at 30 mph. The impact slams you into the ground, leaving you breathless. Arms flail in a confusing mix of fear, shock, and defense. You twist with superhuman strength to escape, but to no avail. A shroud of suffocating, stinky wet fur jams into your mouth and nose. You jerk your head sideways and suck in a deep breath . . . and scream. Your mind floats around in a void of confusion as an eight-inch paw hits your head with the power of a bat smashing out a home run. Neck vertebrae crack; an eardrum ruptures. Even in deafness, there is no deliverance from the angry roars that echo again and again inside your head. The explosive growls in your face reek of rotting moose guts, and cause your stomach to convulse.

  The foot pad holding you down is as heavy and coarse as a column of pot-marked concrete, and just as cold. The three-inch claws grate your skull and continue downward, gouging out chunks of flesh and muscle from your chin and shoulder. You squirm and flail away with your arms to escape the pain. Your eyes bulge out of their sockets as another paw swats you in the back of the head. Claws recoil violently, ripping off half your scalp. Two-inch-long canines stab repeatedly into your face, neck and skull. You feel the bones of your nose and cheekbone crunch like a flimsy soda can. A torrent of blood rushes down your throat, and the terrorized scream that formed seconds earlier becomes nothing more than a raspy gurgle. Time loses all meaning.

  Only now do you know what true terror is. There are no switches to turn off the horror. Closing your eyes won’t make it stop. Your last thoughts before unconsciousness overtakes you: “Why me? If only I had another chance, if only I had known!”

  Each heartbeat drags out for months; a breath seems to come every few years. Then blackness.

  For now, the bear leaves your limp, broken body to check the moose carcass. Now it has two food sources to protect. As the northern lights glow an eerie green overhead, the only movement left is the slowing pulse of your blood, streaming into the sand.

  “Good. You’re coming around. Here, drink this cup of hot Labrador Tea. I’ll stoke the campfire with this driftwood while you get orient
ed.

  “You’re in my Alaska brown bear survival camp. Found you off the main trail. You must have slipped and hit your head on a rock. Glad I found you when I did, ‘cause you don’t wanna be walking around alone out there again, being new to the area and all. Especially tonight. See that moon and the way those northern lights are blazing away overhead? Night of the Brown Bear. If you listen carefully to my words, you’ll have a second chance to do it right. Ignore my advice and anything can happen on a night like this. If you ain’t a bit scared, you’re either a damn liar or too ignorant to know any better. I believe it’s the latter.

  “Bear-mauling victims—at least those fortunate to have lived through some of the horrors you’ve just experienced—often admit they failed to implement one or more precautionary measures that might have prevented the bear attack. I’ll share these with you later. For now, remember this: A bear’s reaction is often the result of man’s inaction in properly planning checks or procedures when traveling in bear country.

  “You can leave if you want, but here’s the bottom line: You’re in the heart of the world’s greatest concentration of brown bear. Around these parts in Alaska, biologists figure there’s a bear for every square mile. About 3,000 in all I’m told. Seems there’s twice that many at times. But you’ll find out for yourself soon enough. You’re here for one reason: to listen, and learn the secrets of stayin’ alive in this country. I’ll stay with you ‘til morning. After that, I’m done with ya, and you take responsibility for your own path through the Night of the Brown Bear.

  “Yes, I’m a real-life person. I’ve been hunting and traveling Alaska bear country goin’ on 33 years now, and here’s a fact I’ll share with you before you ask. Yes, I’ve had my share of frights and close calls with brown bears, mostly because I didn’t have someone teach me what you’re going to learn here tonight. I learned the hard way, which can be downright painful if you ain’t too smart or lucky. Never been much on brains in my youth, if you add up all the stupid things I’ve done and gotten away with. Guess I’ll just hafta credit my survival to luck.”

  “Stoke that fire, friend, before those bears creep in on us!”

  “So, you thought you could steal the fruits away from Mother Fear, without paying the obligatory price of an embrace, huh? You can only cheat fear for so long, friend, getting your jollies by watching those movies or playing video games of overpowering ghastly ghouls and werewolves. Ha! Such exercises are not only ineffective, but also childish and self-deceptive. Here’s why:

  “Hollywood horrors offer fail-safe protection: or, the thrill without the spill—your blood, that is. You can find sanctuary by closing your eyes. Afterwards, your subconscious knows that the appearance of the ending movie credits guarantees your safe passage back to the lobby. The wispy, green tendrils of evil spirits oozing out of the filmstrip are neutralized. Zombies have lost their power to bury people alive. Werewolves have no fangs and claws to maim and injure. When you embark on a journey through the Night of the Brown Bear, you enter the Threshhold of Truth! People have been buried alive by bears. And a single swipe of a bear paw can bleed you dry in minutes. This is real-life danger that doesn’t disappear when you close your eyes.

  “Territorial and rogue bears can and will kill you. They stink of rotting salmon and festering battle scars. Decaying teeth often fuel nasty dispositions. Never trust any bear, especially a rogue that approaches you at night! These bears usually exhibit no fear toward humans, a species they view as an easily overpowered and insignificant obstacle to the comforts of a full belly and dominance.

  “Throw a couple of logs on the campfire, friend, to take off the chill you’re feeling, and turn the Coleman light to full. The fear you felt on your initial journey through the Night of the Brown Bear is natural. Fear is the check, and balance that keeps you in tune with your environment and out of the hospital. But learn to control it, because as the wolf somehow senses the presence of the maimed and crippled in a herd of caribou, so too are brown bears able to sense fear in humans, which often triggers the instinct to attack.

  “Listen to me and the experiences others have had, and hopefully these true-tolife stories will help you become a believer, rather than a victim, of the Night of the Brown Bear.

  “Leave the city and most of its social trappings behind when you enter the wilderness, or they will eventually contribute to your demise. The leeches of ambivalence and complacency thrive in the pond of urban life. You’ll never know when they’ll attach themselves to your subconscious mind, but they always do eventually. They suck the lifeblood of adaptive and strategic reasoning from your psyche, leaving your survival instincts too anemic to see the dangers of brown bear country, let alone cope with them.

  “These debilitating symptoms are obvious. In bear country, hunters often behave like kids at a carnival, so caught up in all the wonderful sights and smells of hunting camp that they fail to first see, then interpret, the danger of a lightning storm flashing overhead. Likewise, they walk through bear country with the same ambivalence to the dangers of their environment. Sound familiar? Your physical eyes may see the obvious path, but your mind’s eye is drawing up plans on how to celebrate your pal’s first blacktail deer. You see, the brown splotch to the right, but you don’t see them as two cubs playing in the blueberry bushes with an irate sow approaching from behind.

  “You want to know what the least-recognized, yet most viable danger of camping in bear country is? Modern tents provide excellent protection from the ravages of typhoons and battering hailstones. That’s what they were designed for. Yet “the safety of your tent” is an oxymoron when a tent is viewed as an effective deterrent to inquisitive or rogue brown bears. I view a tent in brown bear country as nothing more than wrapping material for a human burrito encased in a fluffy Hollofil center. While a tent offers slightly greater deterrent to inquisitive brown bears than say, sleeping in the open, your blind-faith acceptance of it as a “Hands-Off-Or-Else” fortress is nothing more than a manifestation of the Ostrich Syndrome: a compulsiveness to hide your head in a sleeping bag, feeling confident the danger will not find you. Camp long enough in brown bear country and the danger will find you, as Myles Tenbroeck discovered with friend John Firneno in July, 1998.

  “The two men were fishing for salmon on a remote boat-accessible-only tributary of southcentral Alaska’s Talkeetna River. Leaving the other anglers and their tents camped at the creek mouth, they hiked several hundred yards upstream and found solitude, a good fishing hole, and a sandbar to pitch their tent.

  “Myles was a four-year veteran of Alaska Army Airborne ROTC. Trained to be tough. Composed under pressure. Resilient to adversity under a variety of Alaska conditions.

  “The pair pitched their tent in the open, away from obvious bear trails. They stored their food in a bearproof food bag hung in a tall spruce, and cooked their meals 50 yards from their tent. After a day of good salmon fishing, and seeing no bears, they called it a night.

  “At 3 a.m., Alaska’s waning midnight sun resembles a flickering candle: there’s just enough light to see, yet it is dark enough to cast eerie shadows.

  “Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Myles said John always had a hard time sleeping when he knew bullies and thieves were around. And from the looming size of the shadow eclipsing the tent, he realized that perhaps the biggest bully of his life was about to pay them a visit.

  “He nudged Myles once. Twice. Lifting his head off his makeshift backpack/pillow, Myles blinked several times, and looked at John in a quizzical daze. Suddenly, five claws punch through the sidewall of their tent, stopping less than six inches above Myles’ head. Reaching the bottom of the tent, the claws skewered Myles backpack with the force of a gaffer impaling a fish. The bear’s hairy front leg recoiled like a snap trigger, and the pack disappeared through the hole. In disbelief, Myles realized that his head had been on that pack a mere seconds earlier.

  “It was time for action. Just as Myles eased forward to stick his head through
the gaping hole to confirm a visual OK to exit, the bear plunged its head into the tent, its twitching nose stopping inches from Myles’ face.

  “John watched in silent horror. All he could think was how he was going to explain to Myles’ mother why her son’s body didn’t have a head on it anymore.

  “The bear immediately recoiled in a snort of spray as Myles back-pedaled in a flurry of shouts and obscenities. Caught up in the effects of adrenaline rush, he pulled on a stocking cap, slipped into his Army boots and grabbed his 9 mm semi-auto. Scurrying out of the tent, he quickly relieved himself before charging into the brush to retrieve his backpack. John grabbed a shotgun and vowed to save his friend from what he viewed as an irrational, impulsive response. The sight of Myles running into the brush, waving a 9 mm in one hand and clothed only in a stocking cap, boots, and boxer shorts emblazoned with bright red hearts was a frightful, yet hilarious sight. Seconds later, Myles emerged from the brush with his pack that the bear had dropped in his escape. They duct-taped a trash bag over the hole, and went fishing.

  “At about 3 a.m. the next evening, John shook Myles awake again. Both watched the entrance to their tent in wide-eyed amazement after they heard a couple of shotgun blasts fired at the creek mouth camps. Twenty seconds later, Myles and John watched several bears stampeding through the water and darting through the brush. More shots rang out, then quiet. John remained wide-eyed until about 7 a.m., when he again shook Myles awake. He stopped shaking when he glanced back outside and found his nose within inches of a brown bear that pretty much filled the vestibule of their tent, with plenty of bear left over to come inside. When Myles sat up the bear spun on its heels and left. With enough bear adventures for one season, the pair packed up their camp later that day and returned to Fairbanks.