Have you wondered what it would really be like to survive an encounter like the one portrayed in the recent film; The Revenant? In 1998 the author survived a horrific mauling by a Kodiak brown bear. This is the story of that event along with additional tales and personal observations about these coastal giants. The book includes a number of graphic photographs taken within minutes of the actual event, along with the authors personal photos of bears and other Alaskan wildlife.
From the book:
[I]I began yelling as loud as I could for Chuck (who I knew wasn't far away) to shoot the bear. Perhaps the yelling attracted her to my face because she now grabbed my skull, her upper canines sinking into my right eye socket and cheek respectively, while her lower jaw enveloped the back of my head. The sensation was incredible, as if my head was in a powerful vise. My vision began to narrow and darken while a roaring sound grew deep inside my head. It was like being under water too long, holding your breath and fighting to get back to the surface, everything beginning to get dark. I remember thinking; "This is it, this is how it all ends..." Yet, as this went on I was also pulling and turning my head away with as much force as I could muster until suddenly it (my head) popped free with a grating sound that I could sense internally rather than hear audibly. Her upper canines had ripped loose from my eye socket and face leaving two furrows from the entry points well into my hairline. I was partially scalped, but she hadn't "popped" my head, the typical killing method used on deer or moose.
....
[I]The Kodiak archipelago is tucked within the long reach of the Alaskan coast like a group of badly behaved children in the arms of a somewhat aloof mother. Thumbing its nose at the latitude of its arctic parent, cheeky Kodiak bathes in the waters of warm southern currents which give the island a temperate maritime climate seemingly more appropriate to locales far to the south.
In the same way that the Gulf Stream warms the British Isles, the Kuroshiro current begins in warmer latitudes far to the south to move northward along the rim of the Pacific and then east to the Gulf of Alaska to surround Kodiak with a warm wet noose. Above this warm river in the cold northern sea is another warm river of moist low pressure air. These warm sea currents and air masses move north to collide with much colder waters and arctic high pressure air along the Aleutian Islands. This remote island chain marks the boundary between the genteel Pacific and its rowdy and temperamental arctic neighbor, the Bering Sea. The enormous temperature and pressure extremes in this "Birthplace of the Winds" spawn a seemingly endless series of cyclonic low pressure storms which spin to the northeast to lash Kodiak with the rain and fog which envelope it for much of the year. That wet marine climate ends abruptly when it meets the high coastal mountains ringing the Alaska mainland. Beyond that point is the true arctic - the land of Iditarod and Jack London, of clear skies and the Aurora Borealis.
In winter, while mainland Alaska is covered in deep snow, Kodiak is glistening in the fog and seemingly endless winter rains: mildewed perhaps, but generally ice free at sea level for most of the winter. This winter moisture is what makes the island group the rich land that it is, drenching the lower elevations with misty rains and piling up as deep snow in the mountains to replenish the myriad rivers and streams through the dryer summer months. In turn, those clear mountain streams rush down to provide spawning grounds for the hundreds of millions of salmon which annually return to the islands in the age-old cycle. [/I]
From the book:
[I]I began yelling as loud as I could for Chuck (who I knew wasn't far away) to shoot the bear. Perhaps the yelling attracted her to my face because she now grabbed my skull, her upper canines sinking into my right eye socket and cheek respectively, while her lower jaw enveloped the back of my head. The sensation was incredible, as if my head was in a powerful vise. My vision began to narrow and darken while a roaring sound grew deep inside my head. It was like being under water too long, holding your breath and fighting to get back to the surface, everything beginning to get dark. I remember thinking; "This is it, this is how it all ends..." Yet, as this went on I was also pulling and turning my head away with as much force as I could muster until suddenly it (my head) popped free with a grating sound that I could sense internally rather than hear audibly. Her upper canines had ripped loose from my eye socket and face leaving two furrows from the entry points well into my hairline. I was partially scalped, but she hadn't "popped" my head, the typical killing method used on deer or moose.
....
[I]The Kodiak archipelago is tucked within the long reach of the Alaskan coast like a group of badly behaved children in the arms of a somewhat aloof mother. Thumbing its nose at the latitude of its arctic parent, cheeky Kodiak bathes in the waters of warm southern currents which give the island a temperate maritime climate seemingly more appropriate to locales far to the south.
In the same way that the Gulf Stream warms the British Isles, the Kuroshiro current begins in warmer latitudes far to the south to move northward along the rim of the Pacific and then east to the Gulf of Alaska to surround Kodiak with a warm wet noose. Above this warm river in the cold northern sea is another warm river of moist low pressure air. These warm sea currents and air masses move north to collide with much colder waters and arctic high pressure air along the Aleutian Islands. This remote island chain marks the boundary between the genteel Pacific and its rowdy and temperamental arctic neighbor, the Bering Sea. The enormous temperature and pressure extremes in this "Birthplace of the Winds" spawn a seemingly endless series of cyclonic low pressure storms which spin to the northeast to lash Kodiak with the rain and fog which envelope it for much of the year. That wet marine climate ends abruptly when it meets the high coastal mountains ringing the Alaska mainland. Beyond that point is the true arctic - the land of Iditarod and Jack London, of clear skies and the Aurora Borealis.
In winter, while mainland Alaska is covered in deep snow, Kodiak is glistening in the fog and seemingly endless winter rains: mildewed perhaps, but generally ice free at sea level for most of the winter. This winter moisture is what makes the island group the rich land that it is, drenching the lower elevations with misty rains and piling up as deep snow in the mountains to replenish the myriad rivers and streams through the dryer summer months. In turn, those clear mountain streams rush down to provide spawning grounds for the hundreds of millions of salmon which annually return to the islands in the age-old cycle. [/I]
