First I opened one eye, then in disbelief that it was already daylight, I opened the other to verify. Damn! I begrudgingly sat up, then got up and headed for the generator shack. Inspecting my surroundings on the way there and back revealed nothing out of the ordinary.
Upon returning to the lodge, I pulled the door to the laundry room open and entered. I removed my boots, and headed for the coffee pot.
As I made the corner out of the laundry room, toward the dining room, I glanced into the kitchen and noticed some garbage on the floor. I poked my head in and saw the garbage can lying on the floor to my right. Thinking that was odd, I looked to the left, the other one was also lying on the floor. I walked further in toward the walk-in cooler and saw boxes of produce and garbage strewn from the back door forward. The back door to the deck was open and the screen door was ripped wide open.
I ran for the bedroom to get Wendi and met her on the stairs as she was coming down.
“We’ve had a bear… IN THE KITCHEN!”
“What? How’d he get in?”
“Through the screen door.”
“But the inside door was shut tight and latched.”
“Well, come and see for yourself.”
We went back to the kitchen. The exterior door of the kitchen is wooden with a window and its knob is the handle type. On the glass, there was a large dirty smear from the top of the window leading all the way down and across toward the handle. The door opens inward, so after tearing away the screen on the screen door, he’d gotten lucky and opened the door.
I left Wendi there and went to make sure that our visitor wasn’t still in the building. I checked all the bedrooms on the main floor, in case, you know, the bear was trying to find the most comfortable bed–it was gone.
Wendi came out of the kitchen and said she had been meaning to ask me what was in that case down the hall by the door to the manager’s room. I hadn’t noticed it so we went to investigate. I opened the case to find a rifle – a .243, with ammunition.
I gave the rifle a good cleaning and left it with a full magazine in a central location. While we waited for his imminent return, we discussed how to treat the situation. Do I just fire into the air and try to scare him off? Was this the same bear that I photographed on the beach last spring, the one that wasn’t too frightened by the bear banger?
If the bear hadn’t breached the building, I’d have treated the situation the same way as I did last spring, I’d have scared him off. Unfortunately, when he entered the building, he sealed his own fate.
We stayed mostly indoors that day and when I did go outside, we took the rifle. He was a no show that day, so we stayed up as late as we could that night, but he never made an appearance. I did not shut the generator down that night because I did not want to have to deal with him in the dark. We locked the deadbolt on the kitchen door when we went to bed.
Morning came, and we got up and did a patrol of the building and found no evidence of a visit. I kept telling myself that he’d moved on, and I wouldn’t have to kill him, but I knew that wasn’t realistic. I was sure it was only a matter of time before he returned.
We were eating our lunch in silence when we heard a noise from the kitchen. We stopped and looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Wendi rose from her chair and went toward the kitchen and I went for the gun. She crept up to the kitchen entrance, and peering through to the door that had already been breached, she could see the bear through its window. She turned to me and in a quiet voice said, “He’s back”.
I left the dining room to the front deck walking slowly and quietly, and deliberately, to the end of the building. Peering around the corner, I could see him standing at the back door, I lifted the rifle to my shoulder.
Inside, Wendi had crept further into the kitchen. He was rattling the door handle and chewing on the door. He licked the glass. She was beginning to think he would come through the door at any second and was wondering why I hadn’t shot when I pulled the trigger. He dropped to the deck. I moved closer and watched as his eyes faded to a murky haze.
I ejected the spent casing from the chamber and went inside. I set the rifle down and returned to my lunch at the side table. We finished our lunch in silence as I considered how to deal with his carcass.
After lunch, we rolled him up into a cart and wheeled him down to the dock. With a large buoy attached to a slip knot around his neck, we dragged him off the dock with the company boat and over to Kiokathli inlet.
I reposted this story from our website story, now, because whether we’re camping in the wilderness, or living in suburbia, this is the time of year when we all need to be extra “Bear Aware”. If not for our own safety, for the sake of the bears.
Peace out and we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.