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salmon fish don earth abundance bear plenty cardinal on

Crashing a bear’s picnic in Alaska Follow the rules for a rewarding wilderness adventure. Words by Roderick Eime for Hurtigruten Expeditions “Just make plenty of noise. Sing, talk loudly, whatever. Bears don’t like being surprised.” So says the young ranger as we get ready to walk to the viewing platform several hundred metres away. The meandering path leads up through the old growth forest, twisting and turning under low hanging branches, across small streams and along the banks of an angry rivulet bursting with salmon. We stop momentarily to admire a big brown bear sitting waist deep in a pool, lazily swatting at the passing fish. Seemingly intoxicated by the abundance of spawning salmon, the bear occasionally flips one out of the torrent, bites the head off and nonchalantly tosses the carcass back into the flow, where it is swooped on by several juvenile bald eagles. As | turn to continue the stroll, | notice we've lost the rest of the group. There’s just a fellow guest, Glenn, and myself. "Oh, well,” | remark, “there's only one way to go.” SCENT OF A GRIZZLY Momentarily mesmerised, Glenn and | suddenly stop dead in our tracks. “What on Earth is that smell," Glenn exclaims, his face contorted in revulsion. We see no clue in the grassy surroundings and continue on to the tiny shelter that serves as a viewing platform. When we reach our destination, our guide Jim arrives on the scene with the rest of the group. “Where did you two get to?” Jim is not pleased. “Didn't you see that massive grizzly on the way up?” Gulp! Glenn and | had broken two of the cardinal rules. One, stay with ‘the group, and two, listen to your guide. The smell that had stopped Glenn and me in our tracks was the scent — no, stench — of an adult male grizzly, so full of salmon that he had passed out in his own excrement behind a huge fallen log. By the time the following group caught up, the bear was fully awake, upright and craning his neck to see who had just walked by. “Just EL Py of noise. Sing, talk loudly, whatever. Bears don’t like being surprised.’”