The Tale of a Great Bear Dog

November 1, 2023

Notes in 2007

Email, June 24

Hello all, 

Back flying in Alaska. Most days I love my job; it is a lot of hard work with long hours, but I thank God I can work and fly in this incredible land He created. Most days, I have the best job in the world. Yesterday was not one of Iliamna’s wonderful days, however. The weather was horrible—strong winds, rain, and low ceiling. At 6:00 a.m., I gassed up my plane, and, by the time I had put the gas in, pumped out the floats, and pre-flighted the plane, I was soaking wet with the wind blowing the rain up my sleeves and down the back of my neck. My first flight was from the lodge to the mouth of the Iliamna River where it flows into Lake Iliamna on the east end of the lake. It was very cold and rainy, and, with the wind, it was hard to just launch the plane at the lodge. I had to unload the clients and have everyone help turn the plane around until I got the engine started. Take off in the big waves was very bumpy and scared one of the clients. He kept burping, gagging, and gasping into the mic on his headset—distracting and not very encouraging sounds. 

The landing forty minutes later was also very rough, the wind was so strong the other plane could not get to the place where we had the boats parked. The boat had to go out into the lake and unload the clients on the lake while the waves pounded the plane and the boat. When I flew in to pick up that group of clients at 3:30 p.m., it was so rough the other plane could not land. I had to wait seven hours before I could take off again. I was soaking wet and cold the whole day. The seven-hour delay was not what I wanted. When I finally took off at 10:45 p.m., I was shivering and thankful to be able to have the heater warm up my hands. The landing back at the lodge was in big waves but was uneventful. Back at the dock, I found out one of the clients had thrown up in the plane on the trip—he had used my hat to throw up in. Yuck! I had to clean the plane and throw away my hat. One of the guides and one of my clients had to spend the night at the river, as it was too windy and turbulent for me to make another trip. They spent the night in a lodge located one mile upstream from the mouth of the river. The Guth Family owned the lodge and graciously took them in for the night. 

It was past midnight before I got to the bunk house—wet, cold, and exhausted. I picked my guide and client up this morning and brought them back to the lodge. 

On stressful days like yesterday, I thank God that no one got hurt. The weather was better today but still windy. I flew to the king salmon camp on the Nushagak River and took supplies to the guides there. I had to bring one of the guides back as he had cut himself with an ax; the other guide played doctor and put seven stitches in his hand—without anything for the pain. He needed to come in to get antibiotics and have the nurse look at his hand. I will fly him back in the morning. I am ready for an early bed tonight and hope to be asleep in twenty minutes or less.

July 23

This was the day my Jack Russel pup, Hijack, met his first grizzly. I had landed the Beaver on the Kamishak River along the outer Cook inlet and dropped off three guides. They had taken one of the jet boats upriver to learn the river. I took the other boat and my pup downriver, just exploring the coastline for fun. After a few hours, I had to make a nature call. I was sitting on a log with my pants down around my ankles taking care of business, when an adult grizzly came walking up the beach. I first spotted the bear at ninety yards. This was a good teaching moment for the pup, so I started to growl. Hijack just looked at me for a few moments, until I swapped him around to face the approaching bear. The pup got the idea and started growling with me as the bear kept on its path in our direction. 

This bear was not being aggressive, just walking the beach. As I was pulling up my pants, the bear was now forty yards away when little Hijack suddenly bolted ten yards forward barking as loud as he could. I stood up on top of the log and waved my arms. The bear was not concerned about us and just turned forty-five degrees and wandered off. The pup thought it had just run off the bear with its barking. He was the top dog—enormously proud of himself.

A few weeks later, we were in our room when the pup barked once, then growled. I looked up from filling out my pilot logbook only for a moment, then went back to writing. Fifteen minutes later I heard a gunshot. I grabbed my .44 Mag, and the pup and I went out to investigate. Joe and two guides were standing on the trail between the lodge and the garbage pit yelling at something. When we got next to them, we could see the tail end of a grizzly with its head in the incinerator. Joe, who does not like my pup, Hijack, because he also gets into the garbage pit, said the bear would not leave and they could not burn the garbage, Joe had even fired his .357 into the air trying to scare the bear away but the shot had no effect. I picked up a rock and the pup and I took off running full speed at the bear. With my .44 in one hand and a rock in the other, we ran straight at the bear with the pup barking and me yelling like a wild man. The pup acted like he was going to bite that bear in the butt for stealing the food from his garbage pit. When we were twenty feet away, the bear turned and ran, but not before I hit it in the butt with the rock.

I think Hijack would have tried to take a bite out of the bear if it had not run away. He doesn’t know he’s a little dog; he seems to think he’s the size of a bear. Jack Russell Terriers or JRTs are fast and fearless. Sometimes I think it’s a good thing they’re so small. 

July 24

The pup and I chased the bear away from the lodge and into the alders near the lake. Forty-five minutes later, though, the grizzly was back. The pup barked and lunged toward the bear, but I grabbed him by the harness and handed him to the cook. Hijack looked at me as if to say, “How humiliating!” 

With my .44 in hand, I went after the bear and shot it in the butt with a shot shell. It only stung the bear, and it ran into the lake to cool off its butt. The bear stayed clear for the rest of night.

July 25

The golden retriever and Hijack chased the bear away from the main lodge again today. The grizzly has been returning to the lodge at least once every day or during the night. She tears into the incinerator and drags garbage all over the place making a nasty mess. With clients going from the lodge to the cabins at all hours of the day and night, the bear has become a dangerous pest. I am afraid she’s going to get shot one of these days, if not by someone from our lodge, then by someone at the lodge around the bay from us. This bear must learn very soon to stay clear of the lodge or she will have to be killed. 

I’m trying to save her life by carrying a can of bear spray with me, hoping to catch her near the dump. If I can bear-spray her in the act of raiding the incinerator, I can teach her to stay away.

July 26

After two days of carrying the pepper spray around with me, I have not been able to get close enough to spray her. She has learned my scent and takes off running as soon she sees or smells me. The rock and the bird shot in the butt taught her to avoid me.

I have killed over two-hundred bears during my career as a guide. I am not opposed to the use of deadly force, when necessary, but I do not want to see this bear die just because she has become used to getting into the dump.

This problem is man-made and not the fault of the bear. I have one last trick that I hope will work. I had one of the staff put bacon and Crisco on the can of bear spray. Then he hung the bear spray on the door of the incinerator. I did not want my scent on the can. Hopefully, when she comes in to dig in the incinerator, she will bite the can and get a mouth and face full of pepper spray. This may help to teach her to stay away. At least I hope it will.

Around eleven o’clock that night, the pup barked one time, then growled as I was reading. I hoped it was the bear as I wanted to see her reaction when she bit into the pepper spray, I grabbed my .44 and snuck out to the incinerator to watch. No bear, just a cold, wet butt from sitting on a wet log in the rain. I was cold, tired, and soaking wet when I got back to my room. My .44 was also wet, so I cleaned it and laid it next to my bed along with the .45 ACP lightweight Commander. I took a hot shower to warm up and was out before my head hit the pillow.

The grizzly returned to the lodge five hours later. I was sound asleep when the pup started growling. I grabbed my .44 and headed out the door wearing only my skivvies. It was just starting to get light as I stalked down the narrow trail through the alder thicket to the incinerator. Just as I was starting to see the outline of the incinerator in the poor light, I heard compressed air escaping from the ruptured can of bear spray. At once, the bear blasted all the air in her lungs out her nose, it sounded like a very loud half sneeze, half woof. The next thing I knew, she was crashing through the alder thicket—toward me! 

What happened next is so embarrassing I have not yet admitted it to the staff, and I’m not sure I will until the season is over, if ever. After all, I am the Master Guide with thirty years’ experience dealing with grizzly bears.

She broke out on the trail fifteen feet from me at a full charge. I had just enough time to raise and level my .44. I saw my front sight and was starting to pull the trigger while loudly yelling something I will not repeat. She heard the yell and saw me at the same time; she spun around, swapping ends so fast she was a blur, her feet spinning out as she did her best to get traction. She was so terrified, she squirted out a stream of the blackest, smelliest, foulest skat you can imagine. It plastered the trail in front of me and splattered my bare legs and feet. The whole thing was disgusting, but she had been scared off—gone back into the night. 

It took me a minute to get my composure back before I turned and walked back toward the lodge. I used the hose in an attempt to rinse off my legs and feet. I suppose I wasn’t entirely successful, though, because the minute I opened the door to my room, the pup growled just like he was growling at the bear. He wanted nothing to do with me. As I headed for the shower once again, I stood my .44 next to the bed. That’s when I noticed the six rounds of ammo that I had unloaded earlier, before I had cleaned the gun hours ago—I had confronted that grizzly in my skivvies, with nothing between me and that surly bear except my own surly voice and an empty gun.

Email, July 31

Four clients and I flew the eight-seat de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver to the Kokolik River to fish. There is a short place to land a float plane on the river, and the lodge has a boat cached there. As we approached, we could see a grizzly bear in the middle of the landing spot; she was fishing for salmon. I added a little more flap, pulled back on the power a little more, and slowed the Beaver down, landing in true STOL fashion a hundred feet shorter than normal. She hadn’t moved, so I taxied the plane right next to her. She did not like the plane, or the nine-cylinder, R-985 Pratt & Whitney engine (which sounds like a giant Harley engine) and swam to shore. When she got onto shore, two cubs came out of the willows and ran next to her as she half ran, half walked down the riverbank heading straight for the boat. We were also going downriver and stayed fifty yards from her. In forty-five seconds, she was next to the boat. This was the same sow with the trouble-making twins from last year that kept eating life jackets and pooping in the boat, leaving me a mixture of fish, white closed-cell foam, grass, orange nylon, and berries to clean up—what a stinking mess! But I was pleased to see how much the cubs had grown since last September.

As I taxied into shore, the boat was between the plane and the three bears. Momma grizzly jumped right into the boat and started jumping up and down with all four feet, stomping like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. Still raging at our intrusion, she grabbed a five-gallon plastic gas can in her mouth and threw it out of the boat. The can, full of gas, sailed through the air, landing at least thirty feet back onto the tundra. Then she did the same thing to two more full five-gallon gas cans. Next, she jumped out of the boat, ran to the cans, and stomped each one into the tundra. Finished with her tantrum, she looked at us for a moment (I think she stuck her tongue out at us), turned her back, and wandered off with her cubs trailing behind. I had to stop laughing before I could beach the plane, After tying the plane up, we went to see the cans, they were half buried in the tundra with two leaking gas where she had bitten holes in them. Even at $6.98 a gallon with six gallons lost, I still could not stop laughing. 

I am still laughing, so I thought I would share this with the rest of you. 

August 26

Good News! The bear has not returned, and the pup is back to being my buddy again.

I have been privileged to fly over all of Alaska’s amazing landscape and had the opportunity to kayak or raft more than twelve-thousand miles down Alaska’s wild and wonderful rivers. Over the years and along the way, I’ve met up with many bears—a few sudden meet-ups were a little “touch-and-go,” but these two funny encounters with cantankerous grizzlies remind me how truly blessed I’ve been in my life-long career as an Alaska master wilderness guide. 

I hope you enjoyed this little adventure story from my book:

No Sequel to Life: From the Heart of a Bush Pilot

by Jerry J. Jacques, Alaska Master Guide License #110 & CS Norwood

© 2023 Jerry J. Jacques & CS Norwood

The book is due out in early 2024. I’ll keep you posted on our progress, so please keep in touch!