The Bear Truth

Miles Canyon

The mighty Yukon River, winding north to the Bering Sea, provided water transport for the hopeful men and women surging toward their future on Easy Street via the gold-rich creeks outside of Dawson City.  For many such hopefuls, the Klondike Gold Rush started with the brutal hike up the Chilkoot Trail, followed by a stop at Bennet Lake to construct boats for their journey up the Yukon.  Depending on the skill and materials with which they assembled their watercraft, the journey up the Yukon either endangered their lives or took them.  Adding to the risk were the white waters of Miles Canyon and Whitehorse Rapids.  Although the rapids were tamed in the 1950s with construction of the Whitehorse Dam, Miles Canyon remains a breathtakingly beautiful sight,

Morning in Miles Canyon

 
and the trails that follow along the canyon provide plenty of opportunity to meditate on nature’s awesome power and the intrepid spirit of those who traveled the Yukon in search of their dreams. 

I spent many soulful and happy hours exploring these beautiful trails.  On our last morning in Whitehorse (due to a broken tire, we spent 10 days!), I asked Dad to drive up a dirt road to see if we could more easily access the Canyon City site I had hiked to the day before.   Stopping at a likely but unmarked turn, I jumped out of the car, telling him I would “Just check it out and be right back.”  I wanted to show him the site of Canyon City where gold rushers arrived on boats they had built after hauling one ton of supplies up the Chilkoot Trail.  I wanted him to see where entrepreneurs had built taglines (see the history of the tramlines here) to get the Klondikers safely over the Whitehorse Rapids.  I had spent two lovely hours walking to Canyon City from Miles Canyon days before.  After jumping from the car, I did find the site. Just down from where we parked, around a corner and along a short, easy trail, the historic site sat beside the sparking Yukon River.  I turned around to walk back to the car, excitedly calling to him that I had found it.  In keeping with my previously documented trail skills, I apparently turned onto a trail that surely was not there on my way down. 

Trail at Miles Canyon

Wandering from trail to trail, I emerged 30 minutes later on that same dirt road, ¼ mile from where Dad was parked.  God bless my dad; after 56 of marriage to my mom, he is as patient as they come and had no criticism as I dropped laughingly into the car. 

Later that evening, Elaine and I decided to drive up the road so she could see Canyon City.  But THIS time, I was prepared.  As we walked down the trail, I DID notice the trails that branched off, and I carefully marked our route with arrows made of sticks so that we could find our way back to the car with no problems.  Elaine loved the site; we read all the informational signs and sat for a time with our feet in the Yukon. 

Elaine with toes in the Yukon

Thanks to the endless daylight of the far north, 7:00 pm felt like 2:00 in the afternoon.  But apparently, the wildlife knew that evening had arrived. 

Before we found even the FIRST carefully constructed arrow, we heard a tiny “yelp” at our feet and a small black bundle hustled into the woods.  WHAT?  Yes – there they were, Mama, Baby One, and Baby Two.  Black bears.  Maybe 20 feet from the trail.  Staring at us.  Huh. 

Every park service employee up here trains tourists for bears.  “Make lots of noise on the trail.”  Check.  We had been laughing and chatting like city girls.  Never get between a bear and her cubs.  Okay – well, we weren’t really between them. But did anyone ever give that lesson to the baby bears?  And then, probably the most important instructions.  “Make yourself look as large as possible.  BACK up slowly. Do NOT RUN.”

Right.  And in a crisis?  Ha.  We failed on that score.  “Bears!” Elaine breathed out.  Her instinctive reach for her camera stopped by my vice-like grip on her wrist. “Nope. We’re going the other way,” I said, whipping us around and heading (yep, backs to the bears) to the Canyon City site, 50 feet down the trail.

“Can we see them from here?  Can I take their picture?  How about a selfie?”  You gotta love Elaine. 

We waited.  We checked back to find the little family still happily munching their berries and blocking our path.  Finally, we gave in.  My lovely markers will surely confuse some hiker who encounters them tomorrow; goodness knows they did us no good.  Rather than bother the bears, we heading in the general direction of our car on a completely different trail.  Good luck and daylight -- okay, and a certain amount of vertical scrambling -- got us back to our car in one piece, sadly without that bear selfie.   And no bears or humans were harmed in the writing of this true adventure.