First of all, I live in Alaska. As such bear awareness is just part of daily living. Don’t leave food garbage out, pay attention when you’re out in the woods, et cetera. Bear encounters aren’t exactly weird, and most people have at least one story worth telling. My buddy Shooby told about this run in over a couple of beers at the bar one night.

He was out at his cabin in late spring with another friend who was up from Alabama. They’d been out setting for beavers after the break up and had some moderate success, trapping a couple. They’d opened a bottle of whiskey while they were skinning them out, and had moved into the cabin to tie a few more on by the wood stove after hanging the hides on the porch rail.

It was beginning to get dark out when they heard some noise coming from outside. Bama stood up to get a look and when he realized what was happening furiously slurred, “Fucking bear!” and threw open the front door.

The bear was caught so off guard that it shit all over the porch, and tried to flee with the beaver hide that was in its mouth. Bama snagged the other end of the hide, trying to save it, but the bear didn’t want to let go.

So here they were, drunk and terrified, having a tug of war over a beaver hide, when Bama kicked the bear in the nose and fell over backwards with the beaver. The poor black bear turned and ran off into the evening, while Shooby was rolling on the floor, practically dying of laughter.

The beaver hide wound up being ruined and worthless from the exchange, but my buddy tanned it and hung it up on the wall anyway, and to this day there is a nice berry-hued stain on his cabin porch from that poor bear losing control of its bowels.

Anyway, with all of these “bears are scary and some guy nearly got killed” kind of videos out there, I just wanted to share a story that’s a little more light hearted.

Edit - For the record, DO NOT get in any bear’s face. These guys were lucky, and drunk.