What do you do when a black bear takes a culinary interest in your kayak? Mary starts filming five minutes into the 15 minute confrontation – and to be fair uses everything available to her to deter the animal.
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“Why are you doing that?” she shouts, trying to reason with the fluffy mass of muscle, teeth, and claws as it bats around her kayak like a chunk of polystyrene. “That’s what I’m going to do with you”.
“Bear you’re breaking it…” The bear approached her and she sprayed pepper spray to keep it away. She made the unfortunate stop when she was around halfway between a journey through Alaska’s Inside Passage, from Ketchikan near the extreme south of the state to Petersburg, some 110 miles north. It’s the end of September, why are you here?
The unevensequence of events makes it unclear who we should empathize with. “It doesn’t even taste good”, Maley yells.
“You are supposed to be asleep, why are you here?” “It’s not even food!”
For its part, the bear continues to gnaw on the sea kayak lying on the ground outside the cabin.
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Maley explains she had stopped at a U.S. Forest Service cabin in Berg Bay, Alaska and carried her tent, food, and gear inside the cabin to dry. She said she was able to swim out to a boat anchored nearby and got a ride to Wrangell with her belongings and her injured kayak. They did not have their radio on and I feared I would be stranded!
