By Albert Cooksie Gilliam Jr. 11/05/2022
On May 18th, 1983, at 34 years of age, I experienced one of the most astonishing bear encounters of my long, rewarding career as a logger, prospector, fur trapper, and big-game hunting guide in Alaska. It happened on a beautiful, blue-thriller spring morning deep in a Southeast Alaska forest while searching for remnants of the historical gold rush era, Dalton Trail. First pioneered in 1896, the route stretched 300 miles from coastal northern Southeast Alaska to the Yukon Region of Interior Canada. The Dalton Trail’s improbable existence shaped stand-alone chapters in Canadian and Alaskan history, the local Haines community, the Tlingit Native Village of Klukwan, and the nearby Porcupine Mining District.
In 1880 a disreputable strong-arm entrepreneur named Jack Dalton traveled to Alaska, avoiding prosecution for shooting scrapes in the Oregon Territory. He went on to head private, well-funded expeditions for exploration and prospecting ventures in unexplored regions of the north. Ten years later, while in northern Southeast Alaska, near Haines Mission, Jack Dalton usurped an ancient trade route from the local Tlingit Natives for a private toll trail supporting his gold rush ventures. He shot and killed a white man who encouraged the Natives to resist the takeover. During prosecution for murder, although under suspicion of being bought off by his supporters, the jury acquitted him.
Dalton’s crew avoided the often flooded or ice-bound Chilkat River valley floor by diverting fourteen miles of the route to a mountainous, forested ridge. They graded the new segment and constructed bridges suitable for wagons and livestock crossing sizable rivers. An extensive base at Pyramid Harbor, near Haines Mission, included large cattle pens and corrals for 250 packhorses. A series of overnight camps and two trading posts completed the Dalton Pony Express. Sometimes collected at gunpoint, the illegal toll depended on the number of travelers, livestock, draft animals, and wagons in each party. They even forced local Natives to pay. In July of 1898, Jack Dalton had the Trail surveyed. Through the U.S. Government’s Territorial Laws, he acquired a charter, or “private patent,” for the Trail. Starting in 1899, he legally charged a toll, but the Natives no longer had to pay.
Between 1897 and 1899, up to two thousand travelers and ten thousand livestock passed over the Trail. Among the livestock was a herd of five hundred reindeer, transported from Norway to feed the Klondike miners. After 1899, the newly constructed White Pass Railway at nearby Skagway comfortably carried its customers to the interior, causing a severe decline in revenue for the Dalton Trail. After that, the Trail operated primarily to drive livestock north. By 1907, fewer mining camps meant the Klondike region no longer supported a meat market, signaling the Dalton Trail’s end. From conception to demise, Jack Dalton’s short-lived namesake operation equaled or surpassed the coercive drama of the lawless American Old West, setting a pattern continuing into modern Haines, Alaska.
In 1983, Alaska State Parks sponsored a field investigation of the fourteen-mile-long section of the Trail, where it had been switched from the valley floor to the forested ridge in 1890. I took on the project, joined by my wife, Carol Kirkpatric, State Park employee Cynthia Jones, and my woods dog Kelsall. Our adventure began in mid-May when the modest threat typically imposed by Coastal Brown Bears increased due to the elevated hormones associated with their annual spring breeding activity. Their ordinarily solitary, wary nature becomes more interactive and combative, increasing our chance of encountering more than one aggressive bear at the same time. I understood that defensive precautions were essential, further motivated by having met Alaskans mauled by brown bears or who had associated with others who had been mauled.
I encountered the first such victim after completing a tree-falling job in a remote Southeast Alaska logging camp in 1977. Following my seaplane flight from the isolated job site to the island town of Ketchikan, I met Mr. Bruce Johnstone, who had survived a famously-documented bear attack. Bruce was a retired logger, trapper, prospector, and hunting guide. We shared a kinship of spirit; hearing firsthand stories of his colorful past became a cherished memory.
In 1958, while hunting ducks at the mouth of the Unuk River, fifty-three miles northeast of Ketchikan, a boar brown bear and a sow with a cub attacked Bruce together. As Bruce fired his shotgun at the boar, the sow hit him from the side, deflecting his aim. He only blinded the boar with a scatter of birdshot into its face then the sow mauled him brutally. With her bone-crushing jaws clamped around Bruce’s hips, she shook him so violently that the shaking alone caused severe injuries. The furious, excited sow alternated between attacking Bruce and the bellowing boar, blindly searching for him.
Bruce had lost his gun in shallow muddy water when the sow first maimed him. He located it when she became distracted by the boar, but the paper casings of the shotgun shells had swelled while in the water. They failed to feed into the grubby chamber of his Ithaca pump shotgun. Bruce dug into a pocket with his uninjured hand for another shotgun shell. He mistakenly latched onto a waterproof match container, shoving it into the receiver. The sow attacked him again, then left to assault the boar. Bruce finally loaded a shell just as the sow returned, killing her with a point-blank shot to the head. He loaded the gun with his final round but needed to save it for the blind boar if it located him. When the cub attacked, he struck it with the shotgun barrel when it bit and pulled his injured left arm while he sat in the muddy water next to the dead sow.
Two hunters entered the area and heard the commotion; they rushed to the scene, killing the cub and the boar. They laid Bruce on an open boat deck, flushed his wounds with whiskey, and then transported him to the hospital in distant Ketchikan. Bruce told me that the injuries never became infected, but it took years to recover. Over time, he underwent two hip replacement surgeries for injuries sustained when the sow had gripped him in her jaws.
When I moved near the small town of Haines in northern Southeast Alaska in 1976, I learned of horrific bear attacks in that area too. In 1978, I contracted the old-growth tree cutting for a log grading undertaking in a remote mountainous area of the Haines region. The State of Alaska, Dept. of Natural Resources, underwrote the project, including the helicopter that transported us. I cut down randomly selected small plots of trees and then bucked them into logs. The State Foresters graded the logs for size and quality and abandoned them in the roadless mountains, using their data to support future regional timber sales. Two years previously, our chopper pilot had flown the remains of deceased bear attack victim Alan Precup from White Thunder Ridge in nearby Glacier Bay National Park. Still shaken by the experience, he always had a powerful .458 magnum rifle slung over his shoulder whenever outside his grounded helicopter. He told the gruesome story while I hefted his rifle, envisioning owning a .458 magnum. When he mentioned that the only flesh left on Alan’s skeleton was inside his boots, I knew I would soon purchase one.
The day before launching our field investigation of the Dalton Trail, Carol and I were in Haines buying supplies when we encountered resident Marty Cordes. I knew Marty had taken part in the aftermath of a brown bear attack on his hunting partner Forest Young, whom I had previously met. In May 1983, while standing on a street corner, I asked Marty to tell his story so Carol would understand the gravity of hiking and camping in the remote bear country during our project.
Marty said the attack happened in the upper Chilkat Valley when Forest returned, alone and unarmed, to where they had recently killed two moose standing close together. The two hunters had already transported the meat, but brown bears now claimed the gut piles. Forest saw a bear running at him. He began climbing the tree where the hide hung, but the bear took hold of his leg and pulled him to the ground. It bit and clawed holes in his back, ripping three ribs from his spine, tearing one rib out, and portions of two others. Things got quiet, and Forest thought the bear might have left. Then he started drowning in the blood pooling in his throat while lying on his back. He repositioned to allow better breathing, but the movement caused the bear to resume its attack. It bit the flesh away from his bladder and maimed him from head to foot. Forest thought he would surely die. When the bear finally left, he attempted to end his life by cutting both wrists to free himself of overwhelming pain. Only modest blood appeared. Forest first considered that little blood remained but had missed the arteries. He stopped cutting his wrists through fear of further crippling himself if surviving. Then Forest put the knife to his throat, intending to sever his jugular vein but stopping when hearing Marty approach.
With no one to help, Marty backtracked two miles to their cabin for emergency supplies. He returned with an air mattress, a sleeping bag, a burning gasoline-pressure lantern, and a loaded double-barreled shotgun. Then he made the long boat trip down the Chilkat River for help. The bear returned, but the burning lantern kept it from approaching closely. It came back when the lantern burned out, but Forest drove it off with a shotgun blast into the air. Later in the night, he listened to bears squabbling while feeding on moose entrails just one hundred feet away. With the aid of a helicopter summoned from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and then a thirty-five-mile rescue flight to Haines, followed by a ninety-five-mile airplane flight to Juneau, Forest Young survived one of the most gruesome maulings ever documented.
As Marty finished telling his story, a young man approached to ask my name, then mentioned that he planned to assist someone with the last name Peacock when filming brown bears. He wanted to know if I could aid or provide local knowledge. The stranger said that, during their spring mating activity, one or more hormone-charged boar brown bears and a breeding sow often run together at high speed and that they wanted to be the first to film that behavior. Marty stared at him, shook his head, and walked away. I told the inquirer about being engaged with the Dalton Trail project, explaining that we would soon explore a remote forested area thick with brown bears. I offered the opinion that filming running bears in the dense forests near Haines would be challenging, so I could not help him, even after completing my current project. The stranger said they would travel to Alaska’s Denali National Park, where the more open terrain better suited their needs.
Ever since childhood in Washington State, I had intended to forge a career as an Alaskan woodsman. Living near Haines at age 27, I practiced snap-shooting random targets at various angles and distances with a rifle and handgun, including firing at driftwood as it rapidly advanced in churning river water. I trained each of my successive woods dogs never to roam the forest and to remain quietly at my side whenever we encountered wildlife.
Our crossbreed Chesapeake and Labrador dog, Kelsall, carried a pack during the Dalton Trail project. Carol kept our .44 magnum revolver inside her backpack because she was not handgun proficient. We brought it for use in camp, mainly if a bear collapsed our small tent on us. Cynthia had a 12-gauge shotgun, and I carried a bolt-action, .458 magnum rifle with my 400-grain hand-loads. The rifle’s chamber remained empty until a need arose, but its magazine always contained three cartridges. Three backup cartridges were the only items carried in my right front pocket to prevent any mistake while quickly reloading, as had happened to Bruce Johnstone when jamming a waterproof match case into the receiver of his shotgun. I always positioned the cartridges in my pocket to emerge bullet-forward for speed and efficiency when reloading.
Once engaged in our project, we discovered that only an occasional healed-over tree blaze and vague patterns of rotted logs from short corduroy roadway sections marked the passage of men eighty-three years before. Accordingly, we experienced challenges similar to the original explorers while searching for the best route to construct their toll trail through the wilderness.
Carol always projected a cheerful outlook. As a recently-married young couple, our time together exploring far into the primal Alaskan forest remains an enduring high point in my life’s experience. Cynthia harbored a wealth of information about the Dalton Trail, elevating our comradery by spurring conversations rich with historical facts and anecdotes. She also shared thoughts about the clothing and equipment used during the gold rush era.
Deep in the forest on a blustery evening, we lounged upon fragrant hemlock boughs in the glow of our comforting fire. The conversation soon drifted back to that same rainy mid-day when hiking amid enormous piles of fresh bear scat with segments greater in diameter than a soda can. After contemplating the size that a bear must attain to produce scat of such proportions, we were ever aware of those silent, invisible specters prowling the surrounding forest.
Late in the night, alone by our fire, smoke swirled through windblown trees, shifting in shadows and flickers of light. The ethereal scene prompted a dream-induced vision of woodsmen of old peacefully haunting the night near the reach of our dying firelight.
A beautiful, blue-thriller morning heralded the new day. In expanding our search, Kelsall and I separated from Carol and Cynthia to investigate at a lower elevation, with a planned rendezvous further along, in a ridge saddle. The pleasant morning invited yesterday’s conjectures and my late-night ruminations to influence morning thoughts. I conjured up three rugged, early-day woodsmen, rifles in hand. Each wore a colorful woolen jacket, felt hat, and high-topped, lace-up boots. They carried wooden-framed backpacks with oilskin rain slickers rolled and lashed on top. A bearded man with a red bandana around his neck and a revolver strapped to his waist carefully studied the lay of the land. The dense forest muted his words when calling out instructions concerning blazing trees, marking a route with a suitable grade for pack animals and wagons. In my longing to find the Trail, my eyes traced his gaze into the mystery of the forest.
When reaching our rendezvous site before the women did, I further relaxed into the morning, casually kneeling to softly stroke Kelsall’s head, enjoying the cooling sensation of the beaded water clinging to the tips of his hair. He returned my affection through the devotion displayed in his gentle brown eyes just as I heard Carol’s beautiful, clear voice from above, “Al! A bear is running at your back!” I worked the rifle bolt, smoothly pushing a cartridge out of the magazine and into the chamber while straightening and turning under my backpack’s weight.
Everything first appeared normal; then, in the distance of my backtrail, a blond boar brown bear vaulted an elevated windfall log with a running front-leg thrust. A powerful hind-leg kick against the log launched the bear airborne. It hit the ground running with its eyes locked onto me while Carol again called out, “There’s two! Al! There are three bears!” Without realizing it, my acuity instantly sharpened. An independent entity emerged in me as an omnipotent casual observer and evaluator, while my physical actions became immediate and precise. Heightened visual perception noted a blond boar was running at me in dreamlike slow motion. As that bear closed, a chocolate boar cleared the same log and hit the ground running in surreal slow motion, a smaller, darker sow following. I analyzed every detail of the remarkable scene while inexplicably being enthralled by their beauty and grace. They silently ran single-file, angling up the gentle slope, forty feet apart, broad chests thrusting like those of galloping horses, heads held high and steady. Muscles rippled body-length through thick coats of shimmering fur when their feet with flashing claws hit the ground and when breaking into great, reaching bounds. Four-inch-long front claws flicked tufts of moss high into the air, hurtling them airborne twice in each running cycle, never taking their eyes off me.
With the rifle held across my chest, I repeatedly thrust it at the bears and then pulled it back, stomping my left foot forward to shooting position and loudly yelling “HUH!” with each thrust, the defiant shouts resounding through the forest. Considering three bears, three people, and three cartridges in my gun, I weighed the consequences of my options, calculating when I would touch the stock against my shoulder, a finger-stroke to the trigger. By allowing the lead bear to advance perilously close, I would not miss. But when prime to fire, it suddenly leaped to my left, pivoted in midair, then landed with a thud, facing me, vibrant and daunting within lunging range. I continued shouting, stomping, and thrusting my rifle at the following boar. It slightly faltered several yards out, so I held my fire again, judging that it, too, would balk; then it skidded to a halt, twelve feet in front of me. In her blistering charge, the trailing sow nearly collided with that boar, narrowly propelling around it to breeze past my right side, disappearing behind. Her sharp odor swirled in the slipstream of the passing.
I stood quietly, rifle across my chest, sourcing all thoughts and senses at their deepest level, distinct aromas further enriching my awareness. Two enormous, hormone-infused male brown bears took my measure from the front. A breeding female was positioned aft but had been last in line and likely less dominant than the boars. Unwilling to turn my back on the boars to heed the sow, I studied their eyes and behavior to reveal treachery from behind.
Both bears stood tall on four legs, held their heads high, and calmly stared into my eyes. But the blond one soon fidgeted, shifting its gaze between the other bear and me, meaning the chocolate bear dominated and was likely first to press its attack. I concentrated on the chocolate bear, keeping the blond one in the left corner of my vision.
When I matched the chocolate bear’s penetrating scrutiny, it searched my soul. Time further expanded when studying the fur patterns on its face. While we probed the essence of one another, its unblinking brown eyes were eerily reminiscent of a young child’s innocent, frank demeanor. It was the calculating menace of an apex predator at the pinnacle of its game. An aura of invincibility projected from those steady, calm eyes, shrewdly searching the depth of my being for fear, weakness, or strength but also exposing its underlying caution.
Incited by their vigorous breeding activity and driven by adrenalin, the predators had raced my trail to surround me for an easy kill. When Carol spotted them from above and warned me, I gained significant control by facing the bears and aggressively standing my ground.
My rifle had always provided security in the Alaskan wilderness but afforded scant protection when surrounded by three adult brown bears. Yet with a round in the chamber, two more in the magazine, and three backup cartridges in my pocket, I could win this fight for life if not faltering in strength of will or making the slightest mistake. The chocolate bear faced me head-on, then slowly moved to a quartering stance, poised to further its attack. My eyes remained fixed on that bear’s eyes, the blond bear looming to my left, Kelsall steady on my right, an audible pulse rocking through my mind and body. A possible well-intentioned but complicating shotgun blast from Cynthia worried the edge of my thoughts.
The chocolate bear suddenly glanced at the blond bear, prompting me to look at it too. When my eyes shifted, the chocolate bear lunged to take me down; the rifle touched my shoulder with no perceived recoil and only a crisp snapping sound before the bear’s hind feet left the ground. Forty-six hundred pounds of kinetic energy passed between the reaching claws, through the bear’s head, and into the spinal column, instantly driving it two feet backward. Not a muscle moved. The empty ejected case flew. When slamming the next cartridge forward, the rifle’s action jammed solid. The aroma of burned gunpowder overpowered the bears’ odor when I took my eyes off them to clear the jam. Tripping the rifle’s floor plate and opening the bolt, I removed a damaged cartridge; the remaining serviceable round fell to the ground. Snatching all three backup cartridges from my pocket, I inserted one into the chamber, then closed the bolt. Gripping two follow-up rounds between the fingers of my left hand, I searched in a circle, rifle across my chest, its floor plate open, the dangling follower dancing on the Z-spring; both bears had vanished. That extraordinary moment could have no equal.
An intense buzzing sensation faded from my mind as time and perception adjusted to normal. A somber silence then possessed the forest as if nothing unusual had happened. Yet the bear that had materialized out of the trees lay at my feet. Stone-dead on its belly, powerless haunches gathered underneath, the broad snout rested against the massive chest, blood streaming from both nostrils onto the ground, a gaping bullet hole under the right eye venting white mist from the hot muzzle blast. Indeed, the entire incident lasted brief seconds. I had journeyed a surreal, sweeping adventure through time, with Kelsall holding firm alongside me.
During recoil, the Z-spring that raised the cartridge follower had slipped past its machined stop in the floor plate, angling the front of the follower and its two remaining cartridges sharply upward. The next round lodged against the top of the receiver instead of sliding into the chamber, then the bolt overrode the lowered base, denting the cartridge case and locking the action. I adjusted the Z-spring, opened the bolt, reinserted the cartridge into the chamber, loaded the magazine with the two rounds remaining in my hand, and closed the bolt.
Looking uphill through the columns of evergreen trees to locate Carol and Cynthia, I asked them to descend from where they had wisely remained, hidden, while witnessing all that had happened. Our thoughts and words bordered on disbelief. It had been a mature, approximately 750-pound, nine-foot Coastal Brown Bear reveling in the zenith of life.
Although feeling no compassion for my vanquished foe, I experienced no joy over its demise. I felt no sense of conquest in viewing the ragged facial wound, intensifying a desire to shift my gaze from the vacant stare of lifeless eyes. I felt honored by Carol’s diligence and Cynthia’s judgment for not firing her shotgun from a distance. I appreciated Kelsall’s obedience, our preparation, my calculated chance, and luck by the slimmest of margins.