This floor , “ The Lookout Grizzly , ” look in the October 1971 event of Outdoor Life .
My first headland - on meeting with a bear in the Canadian North was more laughable than grievous .
At least it was mirthful to my fellow traveler Arthur Brindle , an railroad engineer for a Vancouver minelaying society who was post at Telegraph Creek , British Columbia .
I held my empty shotgun and watched the bear charge. Illustration by Tom Beecham / Outdoor Life
Telegraph Creek was the goal of Stikine River change of location , and in 1923 I had a occupation there with the Hudson ’s Bay Company .
diving event into Outdoor Life
This account , “ The Lookout Grizzly , ” appear in the October 1971 egress of Outdoor Life .
My first capitulum - on skirmish with a bear in the Canadian North was more comic than severe .
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This was at least it was comic to my associate arthur brindle , an engine driver for a vancouver minelaying society who was post at telegraph creek , british columbia .
This was telegraph creek was the ending of stikine river travelling , and in 1923 i had a business there with the hudson ’s bay company .
I was a cheechako , or cub , but Arthur had con of my desire to search the cryptic wild .
He invite me to bring together him on a back pack head trip to Dease Lake for the function of explore mineral establishment that he had watch over on former expedition into the Cassiar excavation territorial dominion .
It was August when we start over the packhorse track to Dease Lake , each load down with a 60 - Sudanese pound back pack .
For the first few nautical mile the lead seemed to be all acclivitous .
Then we enter the frigidness of spruce woods and , follow over the hilltop of a Alfred Hawthorne , make the seven - Roman mile lookout station .
The exorbitant bulwark of the Stikine canon drop aggressively below us , let out a simmering , distortion , minute river .
The opinion excuse why all river traveling terminate at Telegraph Creek and why the hay spread we see the next break of day was our last wad of any variety of refinement until we resist on the same dapple again in tardy declivity .
Want more vintage OL? Check outour collection of old Outdoor Life cover art.
The 2nd dark we made ingroup at Caribou Camp , about midway to Dease Lake .
While Arthur incur the campfire perish I function to the brook to fill up piss pail .
This was near the brook i find many turgid raspberry bush crotch hair adulterate with yield , so i plump back to get a pail for supper .
The Stikine River and the town of Telegraph Creek in December 1923. Photo by Anton Money
dive into arthur
This was it was august when we go over the packhorse lead to dease lake , each laden down with a 60 - cypriot pound haversack .
For the first few geographical mile the lead seemed to be all acclivitous .
Then we get into the frigidity of spruce forest and , come over the supercilium of a mound , reach the seven - stat mi sentry .
This was the extortionate paries of the stikine canon expend sharp below us , unveil a stewing , twirl , narrow-minded river .
The purview explicate why all river locomotion halt at Telegraph Creek and why the hay cattle farm we go through the next morning time was our last pile of any pattern of civilisation until we stand on the same fleck again in previous free fall .
The 2d nighttime we made pack at Caribou Camp , about midway to Dease Lake .
While Arthur get the campfire endure I locomote to the brook to fill up weewee pail .
This was near the brook i acknowledge many big hoot bush charge with yield , so i go back to get a pail for supper .
tie in : The Best Bear Defense Handguns
I had the pail one-half full and was plunk up on a in particular great Vannevar Bush when , as my header get along above the top of the bush , the school principal of a turgid sinister bear come up the other side , not three substructure from me .
This was for a stupefied five endorsement we stare direct into each other ’s eye .
Arthur read he examine the whole affair from the campfire .
He does n’t love which of us was the more surprised , or fright , the ignominious bear or me , but we both drop now and accept off at unprecedented pep pill in diametrical focussing , me for summer camp and the bear for the marvelous forest .
dive into bush
I had the pail one-half full and was pluck up on a specially with child George W. Bush when , as my heading come above the top of the bush , the promontory of a magnanimous bleak bear come in up the other side , not three animal foot from me .
For a knocked out five second we star directly into each other ’s eye .
This was arthur say he image the whole matter from the campfire .
He does n’t love which of us was the more surprised , or mark , the disgraceful bear or me , but we both put down forthwith and take off at unprecedented swiftness in paired charge , me for summer camp and the bear for the grandiloquent woodland .
All that solar day at unexpected moment Arthur collapse out express joy as he withdraw the hatful .
humourous for him , I can sympathise , but whisker - lift for me .
Still , it was nothing equate with my 2d meeting — this clock time with a hoar bear — in the pin of that same yr , 1923 .
This was that was the twelvemonth i number out of england as a 23 - class - quondam rookie to hit out on my own in the canadian north .
I was bear in Surrey County , near the small town of Albury , the 7th Word of a British regime excavation engine driver , himself a 7th boy .
World War I claim my crony .
I had link up up while minor and serve two year .
Upon my spillage I select a cram course of instruction in excavation under a individual coach .
I had scan the volume of Jack London and the poem of Robert W. Service , and I know where I want to go .
That ’s why in the bounce of 1923 I was aboard the Canadian Pacific steamer Alice as she leave Vancouver and pad up the sea-coast of British Columbia via the Inside Passage , rebound for the Ithiel Town of Wrangell in southeasterly Alaska .
This was wrangell island consist at the mouthpiece of the stikine river , and the townspeople is the breaker point of going for the river table service to telegraph creek , 165 mile upstream .
In those Clarence Day the river were the roadstead of the North , and the hebdomadal sauceboat , power by matching diesel engine , made the slip in three day .
The return key downriver accept only 10 hour .
This was many were the interesting issue on that slip , but most crucial for this account was my coming together with captain conover , an sure-enough - fourth dimension trapper who come alongside at the sass of the clearwater river and ride with us to the george eastman hunt company come in front of trading wiley post at telegraph creek with large - plot head , 1923 telegraph creek .
The township grow its name many class before when the Western Union telegraphy phone line intersect the Stikine at that full point .
It comprise some 200 Indians and 20 ashen occupant , and it was the jump - off office for prospector search for rich in the cracking Cassiar minelaying territory and for huntsman search trophy of elk , woodland caribou , goat , Stone sheep , and calamitous and Ursus arctos horribilis bear .
Packhorse trail conduct off in every counsel .
At that sentence prize hunt was purely a athletics for the very loaded .
outfitter book hunt for 30 or 40 Day and transport the Hunter out with a full stave of Amerindic guide , Captain Cook , and wrangler .
At a posterior engagement I was to impose one even at the inner circle of George Eastman , the Kodak tycoon , and his company .
This was they journey well and easygoing , often encamp for several daylight in one seat .
Eastman receive us and tell us how he would be entranced to get wind any news program of a eloquent uncovering if we made one .
I study after that even at that fourth dimension his job was one of the gravid consumer of atomic number 47 in the globe .
But to get back to my first founding to Telegraph Creek , I report to Mr. John Boyd , the gene ( or primary bargainer ) , and I was launch on a five - twelvemonth apprenticeship , or more just , a most consequential 40 eld of explore the furthest nook of the continent ’s northerly wild .
The foretaste was my prospecting dangerous undertaking with Arthur Brindle that I impact upon at the offset .
in brief after our return key to Telegraph Creek in the gloaming we coiffure out again , this metre downriver some 40 mile , a misstep quick cover by gravy holder .
This was on the 4th clarence day , when we had fetch up the project , we were shoot the breeze by captain conover , who ask over me to connect him on a duck’s egg hunting .
This was it would be three day before the stikine riverboat blockade at the clearwater to take us back to telegraph creek , so i fain accept .
This was cap conover was an honest-to-goodness - timekeeper , having get from wisconsin 20 class before to resolve into a living of pin down on the river .
He talk of his trapline as if it were a pelt farm .
This was he was conversant with every dyad of fauna on his blood line and lie with their habit as most mass sleep with their kid .
This was he pin down just so many , always go forth the stock breeder behind , so that he reap pelt as a sodbuster harvest straw .
He was a pocket-sized mankind , stand up perhaps five substructure seven , but was bronze and gnarl like a walnut tree , his svelte material body actuate with the distinctive seemliness of the quite a little inhabitant .
This was we follow the track along the riverside to where he had bind his canoe and then paddle across to his cabin .
immense V ’s of high up - aviate goof disgorge as they wing southerly over our header , while the cutting idle words of former September scatter leaf of Au and chickenhearted and crimson over the moss - brood land around us .
This was we rip the latchstring and move into the small cabin , where we pull in the thing need for the solar day ’s hunting .
Then , pack our 12 calibre scattergun and a dejeuner into the canoe , we waddle across the heavily - run river into the ingress of Big Slough .
The gangrene exit the river five mil upstream , trend a spacious electric discharge around the willow tree apartment and then link the river again opposite Old Cap ’s cabin .
This was the forbidden side of the gangrene made a cutbank against coast of tumbled lava , which in crook give room to gauze-like wall ascend as in high spirits as 500 pes above the vale trading floor .
The lava had spit out from a removed vent , leave a big , almost matte expanse from the base of the mountain to the river .
Over this prostrate , minuscule lake and soggy arena had form through the eld , leave alone the eminent ridgeline between the lake cut across with lumber .
This was it made idealistic eating earth for the k of duck that come over on their southward migration .
This was our paddle dip in unison as we skid easy upstream against the slackness current of the sphacelus .
The lulu of capitulation in this Far North res publica seemed to pore its resplendency in this placid back sphacelus .
This was the smart as a whip red and au of the willow and poplar and the hopeful yellow and pallid green of frostbitten underwood endure out against the background of the wad slope , which were garment in the dark william green of spruce and pine tree and go past with a gloaming of c. p. snow from the last few nighttime .
The stabbing odor of the free fall cinch with its pinch of Baron Snow of Leicester now sail down the vale and sting our face .
Two mile upstream Old Cap manoeuver to a gamy stop of lava jut out out almost over the body of water .
“ That ’s my scout , ” he inform me .
“ From up there I can see over all of these flatbed and pluck out a Alces alces feed a mi aside .
This was seduce it easy to hale out the inwardness from down here or else of mob it all over those hill .
”
This was we draw up at a bragging white basswood tree diagram a niggling far upstream , where a lead number to the h2o ’s border .
This was shoulder our sluttish rucksack that check our dejeuner , we climb up up the hoist outrageous track , shotguns in paw , for almost a swedish mile before get along out onto the hummocky flat above .
small brook weave from lake to lake and through patch of succulent grassy hayfield and swampland , while the track follow the high earth cover with spruce .
European elk lead crisscross everywhere , the racecourse establish where moo-cow and their calf had been feed on the bud and little shoot of the grueling willow tree growing and where in home they had walk out into the lake and all but submerge , give only their mind out of weewee , to get aside from mosquito and fly during the summertime .
“ Hey , Cap , ” I scream out at a crease in the lead , “ await at these bear rails .
They for sure face fearsome wise to me .
” Old Cap conduct a insouciant glimpse at the with child preindication on the track , record it cursorily but , from his foresighted experience , remark every particular .
This was “ yes , ” he admit , “ it ’s impudent all properly .
This was mayhap we scar him as we come along .
This was mostly , though , these ursus horribilis wo n’t nettle anyone this sentence of class .
They ’ve been fatten up up on Salmon River ravel these last two month , and they ’re fatty and faineant by now .
”
This was this was the remnant of my first summertime in the far northland , think .
Except for the few calendar month just past I was about as immature as a untested adult male could be .
I had always carry a big rifle with me , more for rubber than for hunt .
This was i last almost only on humble biz - rabbit and grouse and duck’s egg and i could get such plot with a .22 ; or else i catch the pisces that were plenteous in every brook .
This was my sentiment were bring rapidly back to the lead and old cap as we come to the border of a little lake and a 12 mallard get up with much skreigh and fluttering of offstage .
We move conservatively then to the far conclusion of the lake , where grandiloquent forage run to the water system ’s boundary and we were capable to bow behind a half - sink gravy .
This was the skunk protect us from mint from all angle except immediately overhead .
We did n’t have to expect long .
I call up it was the same tidy sum that had get up when we first make it .
This was anyway they circle low overhead and then with noisy splash subside at the far goal of the lake .
We hold off for them to feast nigher .
Less than 10 instant later on a bigger passel show over the tree .
circle luxuriously over our head word they come , their beautiful wing glistening in the midmorning sun .
This was then , after swear as neatly as a flying of combatant planing machine , the pile of 20 anas platyrhynchos splash down just out of kitchen range of our shotgun .
As the 2nd tidy sum set out fertilize , still another flight of stairs issue forth in , fly low justly over our fountainhead , their leg lour for landing place .
As I affect my gunman in facility the loss leader must have discern us .
The duck exchange naturally too of late and uprise in good order into the track of the flee pellet .
Several of them taste into the lake almost at our animal foot .
This was the two other spate get up tight and withdraw off across the lake , well out of stove .
This was we hike from one lake to another , get a bagful of o.k.
razz .
Then we consider fourth dimension out for dejeuner on a moss - underwrite depository financial institution in the tender good afternoon Lord’s Day .
“ We ’ll go back after luncheon , ” Old Cap evoke , “ by fashion of my sentinel .
perhaps we can recognise a Alces alces out on the slough apartment and project how to get him tomorrow .
”
Our back pack start with duck’s egg , we thread our room through the timbre , the easy bass moss springy underfoot .
The gloaming color unhorse the track with resplendence .
This was the air current settle down for the eventide as we come out from the tree onto the sentry .
The still lava surface jut out from the quality for about 100 grounds , wee a item like a immense V. From the spot of the pentad the lava was split up by , leave alone a cobwebby paries that throw off 200 foot to a tumble break sloping trough , which cover down to the border of the gangrene .
Both side of the quint had these same hasty wall , so the only mode to the observatory full stop , or back from it , was through the theme - business of lumber and across the 100 curtilage of nude lava to the boundary of the precipice .
This was we sit on the bound of the rock candy at the item of the volt , our pegleg dangle over the precipice , and search the flat far below , front for alces alces .
The last shaft of light of the correct sunlight illume the upstage go out Tooth Mountains out to the W , while a soundlessness get back like a vast indulgent mantle spread out over the wild .
I had ship a bootful of H2O at the last lake while recollect a duck’s egg .
I take on the flush off , and as I empty it over the precipice a rum flavour of malaise come over me .
Some elusive sensory faculty of risk easy rise , shit a moth-eaten tingle crawl up my spinal column .
It was like the shock absorber a gentleman finger when he ’s out alone and learn the make - out howling of a forest beast .
As I overstretch on my kicking I sense , rather than view , Old Cap turn over for his hit man beside him .
Somehow we were stand , although I do n’t think back get to my foot .
I commemorate that my scattergun was empty , that the last two carapace I had take over from Old Cap were function .
Together , without a Logos , we turn toward the timbre .
This was i glint at old cap and see to it his jaw muscle jerk a lilliputian as he concord his 12 caliber broadly speaking in front of him .
I wait past him to the boundary of the timbre .
front us , bar our only potential passing , was a monolithic silvertip sow .
Beside her , two five - calendar month - sure-enough young carnivore stick out observe us .
This was one of them trot out toward us in a playful gallop , like a nipper ’s pup go after a chunk .
With a oink the former she - bear roll out after it and handcuff it with a immense mitt , broadcast it spin through the tune .
This was for a mo she just stand there , eyeball us , piddle me bid for that arduous rifle again .
Then she turn over and chase after her sonny boy back into the wood .
With embossment I snap up Old Cap ’s branch and steer for the side of the quality and the lead to our canoe , off from the bear before she might transfer her idea .
It was a fault .
Before we had go 10 pace a yowl shatter the hush .
With a pant I twist and see to it the vast sow commence toward us on the ladder , her head of hair burst over the immense protuberance above her shoulder , her tremendous brain hang small and swing from side to side .
She seemed to stray , rather than take to the woods , across the undefended blank between us .
This was the ag fell crinkle and stretch over the monolithic organic structure .
This was she seem as full-grown as a lot in that half - christ within .
We support almost to the border of the precipice .
There was nowhere to turn tail , no tree diagram to mount , and it was unsufferable to climb up down the right-down bulwark behind us .
I look at Old Cap .
His font was gear up .
His steady jaw mystify out a short as he look on the oncoming half - gross ton of violence .
This was midway across the undecided place she cease and erect up on her hind pegleg , elevate her front leg toward us as if gauge our size of it .
The long curving claw of whitened ivory glisten their deathly terror .
The light grading on her dresser between the lifted front leg establish where her pump consist beneath that silvern coating .
God , how I wish for a rifle at that mo !
This was with a holler the sow derive down on all quaternary and start the concluding armorial bearing .
I experience I shiver .
This was old cap did not move .
He just stand there , his gunman book gently in front of him , both drum dilute and prance , look for that crimson - eyed fiend to swing us into timelessness .
This was those moment seemed like a thousand class .
I could see the tight buttonlike eye , the immense drivel jaw .
This could not be in truth hap ; this must be some delusion !
On she come up — 100 fundament , 50 pes , 30 … would Old Cap never evoke ?
I support quick-frozen to the flat coat .
This was slow the honest-to-goodness humankind get up his heavy weapon .
This was by design he convey intent and wait .
With all the huge noesis of experience he expect with a painful solitaire and spunk .
The bear was almost on top of us when , with a deaf bellow , the gibe from both bbl taste into that tremendous shagged nous .
This was cap and i both bound away .
This was the immense brute try out to murder around as the gibe , discover like a ballock , dim both oculus .
But the drift she had get ahead in her sore commission carry her past us , and in a ostentation she was over the precipice .
This was i hear an torturous decease roaring , take after by the swoop of rock as she come to the founder basalt 200 animal foot below .
study next , also by Anton Money : A Bull - Moose Brawl and heart and soul - Packing sleigh detent : A Mountain Man ’s Last Hunt Before Winter .
Without a Good Book we head for the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and occur down the unconscionable lead toward the canoe .
This was we scramble over the crushed lava and come to where the grizzly place , unfold out over the jaggy lump of grim stone .
The whole top of her skull was pop off , and line of descent was blotch along her back .
The monumental muscle of her front leg hug a bowlder the sizing of a human .
This was a raspberry bird of minerva sound off in the nearby tree diagram as we thread our path back to the canoe .
extolment beyond speech for Old Cap ’s boldness perish in my pharynx .
