Mr. [LOU] URENECK: We had several bear encounters on the river. And typically, bears, even these big brown bears and grizzlies that you find in Alaska, they’ll leave you alone if you leave them alone. But the guaranteed exception to that is surprising a female bear with her cub.
On the third day of the trip, Adam and I came around a sharp bend in the river. And the river was narrow – it was probably only three raft-widths wide. We came around a sharp bend and there was a big sour bear, all of nine feet tall, probably a thousand pounds, and she was there with her cub – teaching him how to fish. And we surprised her, so it was a very dangerous situation. I pulled the raft over to the side of the river, Adam and I stepped out of the raft, and when we did, when we stepped on to the gravel, she fixed her eyes on Adam. Adam was obviously very anxious – we both were. He started to trot off away from the bear. And when he did that, he seemed to trigger some sort of predatory response in this bear and she started to chase him. I had a gun with me. You have to carry a gun when you’re fishing for salmon in Alaska that time of year. So I brought the gun up. I had no desire to shoot this bear; I did not want to kill a bear; I wasn’t even sure of I could kill the bear. But I brought the gun up to protect my son and I shouted to Adam to stop. He kept running; I shouted again. The bear continued to chase, and I was about ready to pull the trigger when Adam stopped. And in that moment, the bear also stopped, fortunately.
And what happened was she looked back to find her cub, and the cub was missing. Her cub had clambered up into the woods again, and she had to make a decision. You know, was she going to continue to chase Adam or was she going to go find her cub? And, fortunately, maternity prevailed, and she turned around and went looking for her cub. At which point, we jumped in that raft and paddled the heck out of there.
[JOHN] YDSTIE: That’s a very exciting moment.
Mr. URENECK: You know, it’s interesting, John. In the writing of this book, this bear incident is one of those surprises for me as a writer. It was two parents facing off on a river, both of us worried about our cubs.
Reverend Harmon, I am now DISTRAUGHT that I missed your sermon today! YOu wouldn’t happen to have a transcipt of it up anywhere? What a brilliant day to preach on repentance, what with Advent 2 weeks along, and an entire Diocese hitting the bricks yesterday. I think we are all under vast temptation to look over at our reappraiser friends and think “Thank you God, for making me NOT like them!” which cannot lead to the proper humility for real repentance.
Thanks for these thoughts today.
KTF!…mrb