The Adventure of Photography
I’m sitting alone on a snow-covered riverbank 20 miles north of Haines, Alaska. It’s roughly 15 degrees with crystal clear skies, and hundreds of Bald Eagles are within view. My photo trip partner Jim is out of sight but probably just up river – the thick trees block my view on either side. The eagles are still and I’m just resting and taking in the view.
I hear a little rustling and look to my right and see branches moving in the brush about twenty feet away. Immediately I assume it’s an animal of some kind, and get my camera ready (with 70-200mm lens). I hear Jim give a shout in a whispering tone of voice “Bear!”. Not believing him as he’s quite a kidder, I sort of laugh, “Nice one, Jim”. Bears should be hibernating by now. Then I see Jim coming around a bend in the woods, his eyes wide, smiling, camera in hand “I’m serious, a bear!”. I put my camera up and watch the bushes, and there emerges a fuzzy brown head with perfectly round ears, covered in snow.
It’s a very small grizzly bear. I take some photos, amazed. Jim and I immediately say outloud at the same time “Where’s the mother?”. Dunno. We hold our ground and watch as the bear stumbles out of the brush and starts feeding on red berries. Adorably little guy, not sure if he is a first or second year cub. The woods are thick and not an ideal setting for a photo shoot, but I’m so thrilled to be lying in the snow 10-15′ away from this little guy who is obviously aware of us and unafraid.
He stays for a bit then walks diagonally to the right. We take a few steps forward to get a better view as he starts climbing up the snow-covered hill. Excited, we keep watching and are naturally inclined to turn downstream to see if we can get more photos, but I decided we should just back-off and let him go on his way. As soon as he got past us, if we had turned to follow him it would have felt harassing. That little guy should have as much space as he wants.
In town later at dinner we talk to some of the locals and mention the cub. Recently a mother bear was poached in that area. She had two cubs. One injured his paw and they transported it here to get treatment, but he did not recover and had to be euthanized. So the Grizzly we saw in the woods was on his own. I’m grateful for the surprise encounter, and hope he thrives out there in the river valley for many years.