Alaska Travel
How to Go Alaska Bear Viewing and Stay Safe
I’ve enjoyed many experiences during my vacations in Alaska over the years. One of the most memorable was the day I went Alaska bear viewing at Brooks Falls on the Kenai Peninsular. I’d seen bears from the bus in Denali National Park and even watched triplet bear cubs play on the other side of Russian River as I fished there but going bear viewing at Brooks River Falls was an entirely different adventure.
Alaskan bears symbolize the Alaskan wild. There are a total of around 85,000 Alaskan black and brown bears in Alaska and they live and travel nomadically in many parts of this state. While attractive in many ways they need to be treated with respect and given plenty of ‘space’. Unlike moose, bears are generally not encountered on the road. You need to go searching for them.
Inexperienced with bears of any kind and with limited time to find them I decided to take a trip to Brooks Falls and spend a day viewing bears in their naturalhabitat there. I flew from Anchorage to King Salmon and from took a float plane to Brooks Falls. As we landed I spotted a bear and her cubs walking along the water’s edge and realized that we were in ‘bear country’. After a comprehensive briefing by the local National Parks and Wildlife officers I set off with my friends in search of bears.
Instead of just eating berries, the bears we encountered were fishing or splashing in the water. The observation deck on the bank of the Brooks River provided a perfect vantage point for a secure Alaska bear viewing as they fished for salmon swimming upstream. The bears positioned themselves on the rocks of the falls and demonstrated their skill, a combination of determined patience and paw swipes as quick as a blink of the eye. We were captivated and the bears ignored us!
As instructed we made plenty of noise as while walking around the falls so that bears lazing in the sun or eating berries there were not surprised by an encounter with us.
Towards the end of the afternoon as we made our way back to our float plane, a mother bear and her young cubs were seen making their way in our direction. We followed the ‘Always give way to bears’ rule and waited for 20 minutes for the bears to cross the river near us. This delayed our departure and a plane flight out of Alaska for some travellers from Texas. But such is the respect for bears at the Brooks Falls and one of the reasons that this was a safe and authentic Alaska bear viewing day.
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