In 1976 Larry Aumiller arrived at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary to begin his career of managing this area. With little guidance he developed a plan to protect this area and allow a small group of individuals each year to observe one of the largest gathering of brown bears in the world. It is a lottery system where 10 individuals win a place at McNeil for a 4 day spot. Many of the practices he developed continue to be used today. The staff carry a gun, but since the start of the program, a gun has never been needed to be used.
At 9:00am we met for our briefing and Don and I were given the go ahead to join the group. The group for the day consisted of a couple from Canada who had finally got a permit after 8 tries and a group of three who work for National Geographic. They were on a special permit and were getting footage for a documentary in the future. The film makers wanted to get as much time at the Falls as possible so a leave time was set for 10:30am. Warm layers and plenty of food and water was suggested
for the outing. The walk to the river generally is a little under 2 miles. However depending on the tide, the route distance to get to and from the falls may vary. Today the tide permitted us to shorten our hike by being able to cross the lagoon. We wear hip or chest waders. Shorter people like me needed to have more than hip waders as the water came up to my thighs. There is s strong tidal current which makes for slow walking.
At the half way point, we take a break at Eagle Rock. We have arrived here by walking as a unit. One staff member leads and one staff is in the rear. There are no gaps in our line and our pace is dictated by the slowest member. When we go thru the alders, the staff let any bears know of our presence by giving a low shout of hey bear, coming thru bear.
Eagle rock. Dressing in layers is important as we don’t want to overheat. Once we arrive to the viewing site, we will be sitting for the day on a gravel pad.
We pass by several bears who are sleeping in the grass. When they hear us they raise their heads and look around, we stop and soon they put down their heads and we move on. We realize that this is going to be a bear experience like none other that we have experienced.
Finally we hear the roaring sound of the falls in the distance and can see the outline of the canyon. When we approach the place that we can see the river below us, we line up parallel to each other and take in our surroundings. Below us we see bears that are gathering at the falls for a day of fishing. Our waiting before descending to the gravel pads lets the bears know that we are here.
There are about 25 bears fishing when we arrive, the number will increase as the day goes on.
As we head down to the pad, there is an adult bear called Braveheart sleeping almost on the trail.
Braveheart checks us out. We wait till he finally stands up and walks away.
Once it appears that he is comfortable about our presence, we head to the gravel pad.
At the gravel pad we once again take a moment to stand silently and observe the bears. There is an upper and lower gravel pad. Folding chairs are kept here and shortly after arriving, we set up 10 chairs, divided between the lower and upper levels. For the remainder of the day we will be sitting in these chairs. My initial thought that sitting here for 9 hours would be a challenge. That is definitely not the case as there was non stop activity to keep one occupied. We were mostly silent as we watched the antics of the bears. The bears ate fish and we filled up on our snacks.
After some time at fishing, bears would often nap, getting themselves in a comfortable position.
Braveheart, easily identified by a wound on his shoulder is having a good fishing day.
It is drizzle sort of day today and having warm drinks in our thermos helps us to keep warm. There is also the challenge of taking photos with very expensive cameras, that is the film crews problems. (Not ours, Don has his iPhone and I have a point and shoot camera)
This is the lower gravel pad. Once us humans are on the pad the bears know that it is off limits for them
Once we leave the area it is theirs. Several times when we arrive to the pad, there are fish remains or bear scat on the pad showing that they have used it for hanging out.
The day continues with our heads scanning the river. About every hour a count of the bears is taken. The high count for the day was 41
It appears that the catching success rate is high.
After doing a stint at fishing, resting and watching is always an option.
The bears are shedding out which makes for bald spots on their skin.
Braveheart has a unique fishing technique. he wades out to the river and sits down facing downstream. As the water pours over his back it forms a eddy in front of him. as the chum swim up stream, they take a pause in the formed eddy. It is at this point Braveheart reaches down and grabs them.
Beth, the manger tells us that he learned this technique from another bear. It seems to be a good method, but none of the other bears use it.
Most of the bears wait patiently in the falls for fish to pass by and grab them when they bump their legs.
There have been some minor fighting over fish and fishing spots, but only one that occurred that caused an obvious injury. Chops, the name given to the dominant bear of the group decided that another bear was invading his territory. The bear, called Holden, put up some resistance, but when Chops took a nasty bite out of his back he retreated.
After the fight Holden retreated to nurse his wound and his ego.
Over the next couple of days we will be observing other fishing skills. Some of the bears have their special places and after catching and eating their fish they return to the same location.
After sitting and watching for almost 9 hours, it is time to head back to camp. The rain is still falling and we have been wearing our heavy rain gear. Most of us decide to wear it back to camp to try to keep dry. The temperature has fallen so we are more concerned about keeping dry than overheating.
One thing that dictates our return time is the tide schedule. If we want to shorten our hike back we need to time it when the tide heights won’t be above our thighs. We stayed longer today to hit the tides just right. We get back to camp about 10:30, eat a quick dinner and learn that 3 more people have arrived to start their permit tomorrow. One is from Fairbanks and the others from Anchorage. They have all been here and are in their tents. We quickly find our tent and soon are in our sleeping bags listening to the wind and the rain pelt out tent. Falling asleep we try to process our first day of bear viewing.