Guide 1

Keeping in mind your viewing goals and constraints, it’s time to plan your trip. One of your first considerations should be whether you need to hire a guide – perhaps to help you plan, and certainly to help assure your safety and success in meeting bears up close and personal.

WHY HAVE A GUIDE?

Planning Your Trip

Selecting a Viewing Site and Season

Traditionally, many viewers have booked their trip through a travel agent – someone who helped them choose which viewing site(s) to visit, transportation to and from the site(s), and where to overnight. Or viewers have searched the web for information on viewing tours, then contacted the lodges or wilderness taxi services offering tours. Naturally, these businesses have recommended their own services and the sites they usually visit. Vendors of course try to sell whatever benefits them the most, not necessarily what is best for the client – which is something only you can decide.

Your likelihood of having a first class adventure vastly increases if you are careful to match viewing opportunities to your own needs. After listing your needs, gather information about viewing sites. My book Bear Viewing in Alaska lists most of the prime viewing sites in North America, and provides basic information on each. Then, if you need further assistance, consult an independent guide – one familiar with the sites that interest you, but not wedded to any particular viewing site, lodge, or wilderness taxi service.

Obtaining Permits

Sites requiring a viewing permit are listed in the book Bear Viewing in Alaska. Getting a permit on your own requires applying early, preferably no later than February. If that doesn’t work out, your only way of visiting one of these select sites may be in the company of a guide who already has a permit.

Equipment and Supplies

A guide can also help you refine your list of needed equipment and supplies. In some cases, the guide will provide rain gear, hip boots, etc. The more a guide supplies, the less you have to cart around with you; and the less vulnerable you are if you luggage is delayed in the airline system.

Overnighting

If you plan on overnighting, a guide can point you to a convenient wilderness lodge, a near-town B&B, or other accommodations, as well as restaurants, entertainment, sporting goods stores, photo shops, and other local services. Sure, you can get a lot of information on such services simply by consulting the web or a travel agent. But a guide is likely to know which businesses are most accessible and economical, as well as best attuned to viewers – for instance which stores sell hard-to-find items like pepper spray or which lodges provide the best facilities for viewers or coordinate meal times with viewing trips.

Shoulder Activities

Bear watching may not be the only thing you can do in an area. A guide will likely know about other local opportunities – other wildlife you might see, as well as alternative activities for the shoulder periods of your trip or for other members of your family or tour group – for instance great places to hike, fish, or kayak.

Meeting Bears Up Close and Personal

Of course, a guide’s greatest value is getting you within viewing distance of bears, and assuring your success and safety. Some guides also have a lot to teach you about the natural history of bears – including things known mainly to those few of us who have spent thousands of hours watching the animals and perhaps studying them scientifically.

Within the contiguous United States and southern Canada, most bear habitat is so heavily laced with roads that no more than a few miles of hiking are required to get you within viewing distance of a bruin – assuming that you can find one, which can be difficult even for an expert. Unless you are visiting one of the bear centers in Minnesota, most bear sightings are a matter of sheer luck, usually when you are not even looking for a bruin. In most mid-latitude areas of this continent, the only bears you will encounter are black bears, and the chance of one attacking is minuscule, especially if you are in a closely-knit group. So, unless you are in grizzly country (e.g., Yellowstone, Glacier-Waterton, Jasper or Banff national parks), safety won’t require hiring a guide.

By contrast, a guide can be essential in northern Canada and Alaska where bears are more dangerous and the country much wilder. Not only are roads far scarcer, but the country is vast, and getting lost is easy. Most prime viewing sites are dozens of miles from the nearest road; and the intervening country is so mountainous, boggy, or watery that you can access viewing sites only by aircraft or boat – which you might not own or operate.

It’s your guide’s job to know where bears can be found during each season and under various conditions of weather, tidal level, and other factors. The guide should have enough experience at each site to know which sites allow you to get close enough for watching and photography without a lot of vegetation or other people in the way.

Your guide should be able to judge when a normally-good site isn’t right on any given day. For example, windy days make some bears nervous, and thus less tolerant during surprise close encounters. Some sites or bears may be best approached only when the wind is blowing toward the site, so that it warns the bears that people are coming.

Your guide should know when to warn bears that you are near,

versus when you should remain undetected, if possible – not only as you approach the bears and watch them, but also later as you move away.

Your guide should be astute enough to judge how close you can safely be to any given bear. Some bruins feel crowded at distances that others readily tolerate. Furthermore, distance-tolerances can vary with conditions, for instance according to weather and to how hungry the bear is, or to whether it is protecting food, a mate, or cubs. Bears with ready access to escape terrain may be more tolerant than those whose only escape route would take them too close to other people or to more dominant bears or other hazards.

Your guide should know how to safely interact with bears, whether your close encounters are accidental or on purpose. If you accidentally crowd a bear and irritate the animal, the guide should know how to mollify it. Unnecessarily scaring bears away from you not only impedes viewing, but might deprive the animals of essential nutrition. Disturbing a sow might impair her willingness to nurse cubs and reduce the amount of milk she provides. Better to set bears sufficiently at ease that they seem to ignore you. Or, if bears insist on paying attention, your guide should know how to act politely and cooperatively towards those bruins that are willing to live and let live.

While you focus on watching and photographing bears, your guide needs to resist tunnel vision and keep track of everything going on around your group. He/she should remain aware of changing conditions such as wind direction and strength, tidal level, beginning or end of a salmon run, approaching storms, and shifts in the numbers and locations of bears.

Also important is maintaining good relations with other viewers, so that your group doesn’t interfere unduly with them or vice versa. For example, if two groups are on opposite sides of a bear, this can make the bear nervous; and you may find little opportunity to get photos of the bear without having people in the picture too.

If you are one of those folks who wants to learn a lot about bears from your guide, make sure you pick a guide who likes sharing a lot of knowledge–not just a lot of tall tales. Or, if your goal is entertainment, pick a storyteller.

Although serious bear aggression against viewing groups is very rare, it can happen. On that off-chance, I keep an eye out for possible refuges, such as climbable trees. I try to learn everything I can about how to deal face to face with aggressive bears. I instruct my clients in essential precautions and emergency responses. Lastly, I carry cans of pepper spray and sometimes flares to deter an aggressive bear, as well as a VHF radio, emergency locator transmitter, or sat-phone to summon help during an emergency. Your guide should do the same.

Interfacing With Government Officials

If you have comments (complaints, compliments, or observations) about your viewing experience that you would like to share with relevant government agencies, your guide should assist you in making contact or in serving as a conduit for your comments. You can also funnel comments through the Bear Viewing by sending them to gobearviewing@hotmail.com. Or, send your comments to BVA’s blog

One of the most common complaints I hear from viewers is that some guide or group got too close to bears. Indeed, that sometimes happens. However, novices should refrain from self-righteousness and be slow to judge, given that they are just getting to know bears and how to behave around them. Experts can often do things with bears that no novice should even consider attempting. An expert may know when a particular bear will be unusually tolerant. Or, if worse comes to worse, an a bear is disturbed or provoked, the expert might know how to quickly defuse the situation, whereas a notice could just aggravate the problem.

If you want to file a complaint, be sure of your facts; don’t exaggerate. Document the reasons for your complaint, preferably on film or video.

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