So the most frequent question to date has been about bears
and moose here in Alaska. Have we seen
any? And, are there safety
concerns? Short answers: yes and yes.
But fear not! For us
ignorant tourists in Denali National Park there was this helpful sign:
If that’s too small to read, here’s the gist: Try to avoid encounters with bears, moose,
and wolves. BUT, if you DO encounter one
of these animals in the wild you NEED to keep your wits about you and remember
that the appropriate response for each of these animals is different…
For moose: Run away (or hide behind a tree or car…they
attack by clubbing you with their front two hooves and can’t do this if you get
behind something big.) They are
protecting their territory and don’t see well, so they’ll ignore you once you
leave.
For wolves: Be loud, shout at it, and throw rocks at it to
show the wolf that you’re dominant.
For bears: Do NOT run away. Get big, hands in the air, talk calmly to it, and
slowly back away. If it charges or is
aggressive, use pepper spray. (Also
called “bear spray”, which people do hike with here, along with bear bells to
make a jingle noise so they hear you coming and move away.)
Of these three animals, no one seems to talk about wolves,
and safety signs about them are rare, and I have not yet seen one here, so I
don’t think about them. (One time a curious
neighbor dog approached the chickens in our yard while we were outside and, not
joking here, Jerami scared it away by using a sling shot to shoot paintballs at
the dog. Then he let the boys shoot
paintballs at a tree for fun and they were thrilled.) But moose and bears generate a lot of
discussion even among locals, or in the newspaper, or at festivals, and feel
like they are much more a part of life here.
And we have seen both moose and bears in our yard since being here.
MOOSE
First…for sightings.
We have seen moose now at least 6 times, 3 up close and 3 from a
distance. One time we saw a mother moose
and her two young moose on the road just down from our duplex…they were maybe
10 yards in front of us and ran away pretty soon after we saw them. That was cute. The other time a moose was in our yard and we
stood on our deck watching it. We were
safe, but that was an eye opener for me…watching a moose walk where my kids
play.
 |
| Timothy looking at a moose in our back yard. |
Easy escape into the house if it moved closer to us. And the third close up time with a moose it
walked right by our window to the back yard when we were inside at our kitchen
table. So there was a window between us,
but we were maybe 10 feet from the moose.
I didn’t get a picture as it happened too fast.
If you ask Matthew his thoughts on moose and bears here, he
will enthusiastically tell you that “Moose kill more people in Alaska than
bears!” And he’s right, mostly due to
car accidents. We learned this from
Alex, a friend who volunteers on the farm here.
I also heard a story from a lady in the church nursery about a kid who
stepped off of a bus in the middle of Anchorage and by terrible luck stepped in
between a mother moose and her baby, and the mother attacked and killed this
kid.
Later that week Jerami joined us for dinner and told us this
story of what we missed in our backyard when we were gone that afternoon…
By his account, he said the gate to the neighbor’s yard had
been left unlocked, and somehow the baby moose found its way inside the fenced
area, but the mother was stuck on the outside and couldn’t figure out how to
get to her baby on the other side of the fence.
And the mother moose was clearly stressed about this. SO, according to his telling, Jerami opened the
gate wide into the neighbor’s yard. Then, he attempted to gently shoo the baby
moose out the open gate and reunite baby moose and mother moose. What could go wrong? So while trying to shoo the baby moose
towards the gate, the mother moose jumps the fence and starts to run towards
Jerami so he ran away and hid behind a tree (see National Park Service advice
above!!) Eventually the mother turned
towards her baby, Jerami jumped out of the fenced area to safety, and the two
moose found their way out of the yard, happy ending.
Of course I am way too sophisticated to fall for a made up
story like that. I’m no dumb tourist and
I didn’t believe him and told him exactly that.
Until he pulled out a video on his phone of the story and it all
happened just as he told it. Apparently
he wanted a video recording of his death-by-moose-trampling if that came to
pass. So I had to eat my words and be
both bummed and thankful we were not home for this incident….we would have had
great seats at our living room window for this drama had we been home.
So…is there an extra layer of “excitement” when we go
outside in our back yard? Yes. And I’m constantly looking around me for
moose (and bears…but they get their own post later) and angling to figure out
which house door or car is closest and where are my kids relative to me if a
moose approached from a given angle.
Needless to say it’s a little hard for me to just relax outside if I’m
also watching three kids. I much prefer
to be outside with the kids when there are also other adults around…for more
eyes to spot a moose, but also more help if a moose did show up when we were
outside. Or it’s nice to go outside by
myself when I’m not responsible for 3 littles…but that’s pretty rare. So it’s just sort of a part of life
here. I can’t realistically keep three
kids cooped up in our duplex (and I don’t want to)…so it’s an accepted risk
given the circumstances. It’s made me
think about the psychology of fear, and how I assess risk...what’s a reasonable
fear and what’s more hype that I should *try* to move past. I love love love being here and wouldn’t
trade it, but I am looking forward to some relaxed backyard time in Minnesota
when I can stop thinking about moose/bears and escape routes for myself and three
little kids. After this I think I need
to just post a happy picture from some of our
many awesome adventures…….
 | ||
| Top of Flattop Mountain. Chugatch Mountains on 3 sides of us, View of Anchorage and the Cook Inlet to the west. Very cool hike with a steep rock scramble at the end.. |
This morning we're packing up and hitting the road for a camping trip to visit the Kenai Peninsula and Kenai Fjords National Park. I'll try to post again after our return.
Hugs to all,
Ann, for all of us
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