A Bear Encounter While Hunting Moose

By David Wade York

TOK — It was a cool morning on a fall day in September. As I woke up on my cot, I could smell the smoke lingering on my clothing. The conversations and dirty jokes from the night before around the campfire were still gurgling in my mind; I was also thinking about the moose I shot the day before, pondering how such a majestic animal could be taken with such a small object like a bullet.

While I was taking my cold diaper-wipe bath, I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t yip and wake everybody up. Finally I felt somewhat clean. I pulled on my blood-stained hunting clothes and stumbled outside to do my morning business. I craved that one-of-a-kind, hunting-camp coffee, the kind that keeps you going all day off the grounds stuck in your teeth. I walked over to the fire. My grandpa already had it crackling; I could feel the heat growing with every step. Then my grandpa said that magic word.

“Coffee?”

The morning was on track. I could tell it was going to be great day.

I planned to take the game meat back and hang it up in a walk-in cooler so it wouldn’t spoil. I did not know then, however, that my jaunt back down the mountain would stick in my memory forever. As I walked over to my four-wheeler, I watched the sun rise through the foggy valley below. I mentally registered every necessity for the 13-mile journey back to my vehicle, a grueling trek over mountainous terrain only conquered coming in just three days before. I gassed up the four-wheeler and loaded up. Two front quarters of moose graced the front rack, one hind quarter across the back rack. The rest filled my trailer. By that time it was 9 a.m. I needed to hustle before the sun’s increasing heat threatened a winter’s supply of precious roasts, steaks, and moose burger.

I started down the bumpy, windy trail all the while counting the fresh tracks criss-crossing the trail my grandfather and uncle had made on previous trips. I even spotted some bear tracks, which continued for three miles. I never stopped, though. I was not interested in greeting a bear, any bear.

Finally I was back my truck after wrestling my four-wheeler down that water-rotted, slimy mess of a trail for 13 punishing miles. I couldn’t wait to get off my machine to stretch my tired, battered body. As I began loading the meat in my truck, a nosey game warden with nothing better to do stopped to interrogate me about transporting game meat. I usually am not a jerk, but my miserable trip gave me license to be irritable. For some reason this guy also made me want to punch him square in the nose. Instead of being arrested for that, however, I resorted to sarcasm. The officer asked me if the meat was mine.

“Nope,” I declared, in an exaggerated Southern drawl. “Ah got this here large cow at the Fred Myer deli.”

The officer was not amused, a great reason to continue.

“Ah drove it here just so people could see me put meat in the back of my truck during hunting season.”

Thankfully, the officer simply asked to see my prize. I happily and proudly showed him to the meat. After chatting with the warden, I discovered why he initially had been so abrupt. Apparently, he was searching for some other hunter who had shot a cow moose and left the poor animal to die in the ditch. The officer was checking the gender of my moose.

I then drove the moose meat to hang in a walk-in cooler at a road house where my uncle worked. After that I headed back up the trail to finish off my hunting vacation. I decided to zoom up the first four miles of an old gold mining road. By now the sun was beginning to set after a long day. I decided to test out my new wheels. I squeezed my thumb to my forefinger to hasten the speed. Unfortunately, after about a mile of nice clean trails, I became a little more lenient on the throttle and started playing “fast and furious” with my four-wheeler. As I came sliding around one of the sharp corners, a golden brown bear with a dark face was sitting right in the middle of the trail. We were both surprised. The bear never heard me coming. I hadn’t spotted it either because the thick willows and alder towered more than seven feet on both sides of the trail.

As I came screaming around that tunneled corner on two wheels, I could swear that bear had eyebrows, which its raised in a startled expression just before stumbling head over heels scrambling off the trail. I still can’t imagine my own shocked look as I squeezed the brake with all my strength and began skidding sideways.

Nerves shattered, my bear encounter required a much-deserved rest stop. I just had to gather my senses as my heart pounded away, my breathing expanding and contracting my chest as I contemplated the scare and my good fortune. If I had been on foot, I likely would have wandered right up to that bear. It might well have attacked, left me for dead or horribly mauled. My four-wheeler likely scared that bad boy off. For the rest of my trip back to the camp, I motored along calmly, happy to be alive and with no more surprises. That evening’s campfire chatter, however, proved more interesting than usual as our hunting party laugh heartily over my ordeal. In fact, to this day they still tease me about the bear that got the best of Davie York.

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