Why you should buy my book

A Kodiak Bear Mauling, my .44 Magnum Opus

Why should you buy my book?

This new paperback edition is edited in such a way that many parts of it now actually make sense. For example, instead of just random punctuation thrown in every half-dozen words or so, I have cunningly rearranged those marks into patterns that English speaking people will recognize and approve of. Now that the new and improved book is out in an actual paper version to satisfy those too digitally impaired to operate a Kindle, there really is no valid reason for not purchasing it!

In addition, this paper edition has a splendid bonus photography section contributed by (i think) the finest photographer working in Alaska today; Adina Preston. Adina also did the very artistic cover. So, even if you can't read, there are nice pictures.

Even if you do not buy the book, you should probably share this post with everyone you know so that the book goes viral and the entire world has a chance to send me money. My plan of retiring to a 40 acre plot in Arizona to sit on the porch damning the government and shooting at coyotes with an AR 15 would be significantly enhanced if I could afford a 160 acre plot and shoot at really far away coyotes with a Barrett .50 BMG. Think of buying the book as your way of keeping Barrett industries from moving to China, as well as protecting innocent puppies from coyotes.

Recently, I have been compared to Ernest Hemingway. It wasn't a favorable comparison really and had nothing to do with writing, but my wife pointed out that like Hemingway I am also a gun nut who drinks too much. I take that as high praise indeed! Besides, my book has funny parts, something that Hemingway left out of his books to make room for extra communists and bullfighters, so there's that. I went to a lot of trouble to remove all the communists and bullfighters just to satisfy those critics who complained about them in earlier editions. Still, I may be the best writer on Kodiak bears out there, which is rather like being the classiest stripper in Detroit.

Perhaps you think that because you live in Liverpool or Las Vegas, you don't actually need a book about grizzly bears? Nothing could be further from the truth! By one estimate (mine) there are approximately 200 rickety circus trains across the globe, filled with ill-treated and ravenous bears. You may step out of a Starbucks one morning with a low-fat mocha at the same moment an eastern European circus train hits a beer truck and disgorges up to two dozen angry bears onto the pavement. It happens all the time, though you'd never know it with the media getting all distracted with wars and deficits and this Ed Snowden character. If you have purchased the book you'll know exactly what to do when you see those bears, and if you haven't purchased the book your internal organs will be ripped out one by one as you lie on the sidewalk in a spreading pool of your own blood and low-fat mocha. Circus bear handlers are like carnival workers, but without the inherent dignity and courage. That is to say that most of them are Ukrainians who will be too busy recording the event on their phones, or drunk.

Many of the bear defense techniques in the book will also protect you from terrorists. Did I mention that? And outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Without the book you will be screwed in the event of a circus train catastrophe! You'll be dead and your family will be thrown into the street with nothing but an Obamaphone and an EBT card after the Ukrainians sue your estate for spilling too-hot mocha on their bear. Your daughter's puppy will die of a lingering and painful illness that any vet could cure for a few dollars, which your family will not have because of your lack of planning.

Even if you're lucky enough not to be attacked by bears or sued by Ukrainians, those kids and grandkids are going to see the blank spot in your bookshelf and know that YOU DIDN'T LOVE THEM enough to buy this book, which will inflict deep psychological scars. Now, it really isn't up to me to judge you for hating your own offspring, but someday when you're elderly and alone, are they going to patiently listen to you drone on and on and on about the old days, or smother you with a pillow and loot your medicine cabinet for oxycodone? It is up to you really, but if I were in your shoes, I'd buy the book just so that last thing doesn't happen!

Besides, do you know who else didn't buy the book? ADOLF-FRICKING-HITLER, that's who!

http://www.amazon.com/Kodiak-Bear-Mauling-Living-Alaskas/dp/1470082896/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

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That's quite a sales pitch, KB, though I think Biak missed the point.

 

I don't mind posting some of the first chapter at all. It's already viewable with the "look inside" feature on Amazon.

I make light of the book and I realize it's probably not of great interest in this forum, but it's a serious work. The mauling was very ugly and I still carry the scars and physical limitations, but I didn't want to write a hairy-chested bear story. Instead, I took a serious look at how we (and by "we" I mostly mean Alaskans) have learned to live with these big hairy turds all around us. There have been two attacks in the last month here, one fatal. It's part of our reality in the same way people in Chicago deal with street crime or people in Oklahoma live with tornadoes.


Chapter 1

The Eyes of a Grizzly

I was moving very slowly and quietly with the wind in my face and as I rounded a clump of brush, I looked to my left and saw a bear lying there. She was perhaps ten yards away and looking me right in the eye, crouched low to the ground with her paws in front ready to pounce. I have often wondered what would have happened if our eyes had not met. Would the animal have allowed me to go in peace, or just taken me down from behind after I passed? As it was, the bear just leaped upon eye contact and was inside the swing of my rifle before I could get it up to my shoulder. The next few minutes would change my life forever, leaving physical and mental scars that still plague me to this day.

Meeting the eyes of a grizzly is an interesting experience because those eyes hold real intelligence and power. The eyes of other common Alaskan animals such as moose or caribou reveal little beyond fear or vague curiosity. A ruminant’s brain has very little room for much beyond eating, fleeing and mating. Your attention is drawn to other things on such an animal; the antlers perhaps...

A bear is a different proposition altogether. The wide brown eyes of this predator are expressive and calculating and meeting them is to know that you are looking into the mind of a thinking animal. I cannot stress that difference enough, though it is difficult to articulate this to people who have not had the experience. When meeting a grizzly at close range you generally find yourself waiting for the animal to make a decision - to leave, hopefully. Your eyes will lock with those of the bear and there will be some sort of visceral communication taking place. You can watch the play of emotion and calculation cross the animals face while he evaluates you and tries to decide what your presence means and what he should do about it.

Are you a threat? Are you food? Can he take those succulent salmon or berries you are holding?

Those eyes may show surprise at first, followed by curiosity (examining you or the fish or berries you carry), to anger, bluster, intimidation, indecision... What you do to influence that animal’s next move may hold the key to how this little drama plays out; whether you go home with a great bear tale or become organic matter feeding the salmonberries and wild roses.

Reading the animals intent takes no particular skill or insight. Indeed, the animal’s entire face and upper body has evolved into a useful communication tool capable of broadcasting some fairly complex (and quite unmistakable) messages. The facial anatomy of a bear mirrors many of the same expressive features as that of a man, and those expressions can be understood in the same way. At its most basic level, the face can meet yours in challenge or look down or away to show submission or non-threatening intent. To express more complex emotions; the brows can raise, wrinkle or narrow to denote surprise, curiosity or anger. The mouth and lips can open to form an “O” of contentment, or curl back to bare teeth in anger or threat. The muscles of the upper body and neck can be instantly “pumped up” to form a threat display that any body-builder would understand and envy; the fur over that massive frame rising like that of a cat to enhance the menacing posture.

The animal will accentuate those visual cues with a wide range of vocalizations. It can use everything from a questioning or neutral “chuffing” to ever louder (and more threatening) snarls and roars, leading up to a very fearful “clicking” or “clacking” noise made by snapping its teeth together, a clear demonstration of the power of its massive jaws, and of its willingness to use them if necessary.

The face changes when the animal reaches a decision. Most often, the bear will simply exhibit a dismissive expression and posture, relaxing its features and upper body musculature before turning its gaze away and leaving in peace. On very rare occasions, they will decide on another course of action. Not many people have seen the eyes of an attacking grizzly, and many who have are no longer able to tell anyone what they looked like. I can tell you that those eyes show nothing but cold anger and grim determination. The face of an attacking bear is all business - a cold expressionless mask. Adrenaline enlarges the bear’s pupils until they cover the lighter iris, turning the eye into a lifeless black orb shining brightly from between narrowed lids. The ears fall flat against the head and the skin of the entire face draws back tightly against the skull. The animal simply begins running at 35 miles per hour straight at the object of its anger. Still, there is a message to be read here; a short ursine memo under the subject header; “I Am Going To Kill You Now” followed by the brief reminder that it is nothing personal…

The Kodiak archipelago is tucked within the long reach of the Alaskan coast like a group of badly behaved children in the arms of a somewhat aloof mother. Thumbing its nose at the latitude of its arctic parent, cheeky Kodiak bathes in the waters of warm southern currents that give the island a temperate maritime climate seemingly more appropriate to locales far to the south.

In the same way that the Gulf Stream warms the British Isles, the Kuroshio Current begins in warmer latitudes far to the south to move northward along the rim of the Pacific and then east to the Gulf of Alaska to surround Kodiak with a warm wet noose. Above this warm river in the cold northern sea is another warm river of moist low-pressure air. These warm sea currents and air masses move north to collide with much colder waters and arctic high-pressure air along the Aleutian Islands. This remote island chain marks the boundary between the genteel Pacific and its rowdy and temperamental arctic neighbor, the Bering Sea. The enormous temperature and pressure extremes in this “Birthplace of the Winds” spawn a seemingly endless series of cyclonic low-pressure storms that spin to the northeast to lash Kodiak with the rain and fog which envelope it for much of the year. That wet marine climate ends abruptly when it meets the high coastal mountains ringing the Alaska mainland. Beyond that point is the true arctic – the land of Iditarod and Jack London, of clear skies and the Aurora Borealis. In winter, while mainland Alaska is covered in deep snow, Kodiak is often glistening in the fog and seemingly endless winter rains; mildewed perhaps, but generally ice free at sea level for much of the winter. This winter moisture is what makes the island group the rich land that it is, drenching the lower elevations with misty rains and piling up as deep snow in the mountains to replenish the myriad rivers and streams through the dryer summer months. In turn, those clear mountain streams rush down to provide spawning grounds for the hundreds of millions of salmon that annually return to the islands in the age-old cycle.

Kodiak is not only biologically rich, but also beautiful almost beyond description. On a sunny summer day one can be struck by the almost tropical aspect of the islands. Wildflowers grow in profusion here which have to be seen to be believed - damp bogs explode with purple iris and exotic chocolate lilies and even its own variety of orchid, while above, the higher slopes host a profusion of fireweed or lupines that can turn whole hillsides pink or purple overnight. On warm July days, mountain meadows perfume the air for a mile around when the wild roses open their short-lived and pungent blossoms. Belts of salmonberries, huckleberries and high bush cranberries are always in sight, offering delicious fruit that can be gathered almost effortlessly. From a distance, the grasses appear to clothe the mountainsides like vertical golf courses, a green that hurts the eye, a green so intense that photographers are sometimes accused of tinting pictures taken in early summer.

Chunky bodied blacktail deer forage through the richness on their delicate legs, building up layers of fat to get them through the leaner days of winter. Massive Roosevelt elk bugle from the forested regions of Afognak and Raspberry islands. Mountain goats dance improbably along high precipices, seemingly in defiance of gravity. Whales of many different varieties can be observed from any headland by a patient watcher, their white plumes standing out against the dark blue summer sea. Soaring eagles drift lazily on the warm air currents. Thousands of songbirds fill the air with sound. Fat bees hum drowsily among the flowers. Rivers and streams are choked with millions of spawning salmon.

It’s difficult to describe to a stranger what Kodiak actually looks like since traveling only a few miles in any direction will generally reveal an entirely different topography. The northeastern section of the island group is heavily forested with stands of massive Sitka Spruce that shut out all sunlight, creating a twilight world of green moss and eerie silence; a temperate rainforest. Snow capped peaks dominate much of the center of the island group, standing guard over steep grassy slopes. Other areas (particularly in the south) are made up of low hills covered with scrubby brush, country resembling eastern Wyoming in a damp spring. Moving to the coast, you find miles of volcanic black sand beaches interspersed with high cliffs against which the North Pacific crashes, slowly eating away the defiant land; an epic battle that will someday be lost to the eternal sea. Deep fiords are carved into the interior so that no place on the island is far from salt water.
Perhaps the most typical Kodiak vista would be a scene of grassy mountainsides cut with thick stands of the ubiquitous red alder, a low shrubby tree that forms dense impenetrable tangles that are best avoided by bipeds. One quickly learns that in Kodiak a straight line is not necessarily the shortest distance between two points if that line intersects an alder belt.

Those same alders are the first harbingers of spring. As the days begin to lengthen, you might notice the green growth of the hardy wild parsnip or “pushky” dotting the brown hillsides as early as late March, and you might think the endless rains of winter are over, the bright summer days right around the corner… a forlorn hope. It will not be until sometime in May or even early June, when the alders announce that summer has come. The buds of the red alder will not be tempted to open until the first warm days, no matter how late in the season that is. When they do open it will happen literally overnight; one day you are looking at bare brown winter hills and on the next, they are shot with the vibrant green of young alder leaves tracing their way up the mountainsides like arteries carrying life to a living body. Within a few days of that first alder greenery, the grasses will shoot up to cover the last dead growth of the previous year; filling in the remaining slopes to create a lush green world. That first burst of greenery is an almost embarrassing and improbable lime-green, a fruity, tropical and effeminate color that will only gradually darken to a green suitable to the staid northern world - Ireland in the North Pacific.

Summer is here and the pace of life will become frenetic for all living things.

In these latitudes, the summer sun does not simply cross the sky from east to west, but rather describes a parabola, rising in the north to go around the sky until eventually it sinks below the northern horizon again, a few degrees west of where it rose that morning. It stays there just below the horizon, lighting the sky and leaving the earth in twilight for a few hours, until rising again to turn the morning dew into ground-clinging mist that can pour down the valleys like ethereal rivers. The near endless daylight is often disorienting to the newcomer, interfering with sleep s and leading to increased energy and activity, and often mental confusion when exhaustion steps in like a loan shark come to collect payment. Much of this is a physiological response to the increased output of endorphins (and a host of other chemicals) produced by the endocrine system. It is rather like Seasonal Affective Disorder (the “Christmas Blues”) in reverse; an elevation of mood caused by an excess of chemical soup dumped into the bloodstream in response to the increased sunlight, rather than the shortage of those same chemicals created by the lack of sunlight in winter. You really do have more energy and require less sleep in the northern summer and that same furious burst of activity can be seen in the other living things around you.

It is a mistake to allow yourself to be lulled into carelessness by the heady beauty of this verdant landscape, or by the apparently tame and tranquil nature of the wildlife busily storing up calories for the winter, almost heedless of the presence of man. One must always keep in mind that just around the next bend in the stream or lying amid that patch of wild roses may lurk the largest land-predator on earth. It is a heart-stopping moment when a formless mass in the brush alongside the trail materializes into the shape of a giant bear. Invariably, it is already watching you well before your weaker senses become aware of him.
The islands are home to about three thousand brown (Kodiak) bears, or about one bear per square mile.

Think about that.

In strictly mathematical terms, the odds are that wherever you stand on these islands, a circle drawn around your figure reaching out one half mile in every direction will likely hold a grizzly. Of course, all of this depends on where you are standing and at what time of year. A circle drawn within a bend of the Karluk River in July (when the salmon are running in force) might include fifty bears. A much larger circle drawn there in December when the bears have retreated to the hills to prepare for the long sleep might include none.

The “Kodiak” brown bear is not a species unto itself, but a mammoth version of the grizzly, the same bear once common to most of the North American continent. Male grizzlies in the interior of Alaska or the Canadian Yukon (where protein is relatively scarce), average a mere three hundred pounds in weight (figures verified by official sampling of hunter trophies). Grizzlies in Wyoming and Montana are somewhat larger, averaging closer to five hundred pounds. Contrast those sizes with coastal Alaskan grizzlies (to include those on Kodiak) that can reach fifteen hundred pounds, or perhaps even larger if field reports are to be believed. The problem with weighing such critters is they simply will not cooperate unless you shoot them first, and then they are too large to drag to a scale. Since there are very few roads on Kodiak or the adjacent coastal regions, trophies are not loaded onto a convenient pickup truck and taken into town to be weighed, but must be skinned and butchered in the field. With no scales out in the wilderness where the largest bears are taken, the size becomes subjective and sometimes inflated.
A friend of mine shot a good sized fall bear on a ranch near town and that bear was hauled onto a cattle scale and found to weigh just over eleven hundred pounds. Many years ago, the crew of a salmon tender in a remote Kodiak bay shot a large bear. That bear was dragged onto the fish scales and (according to numerous witnesses) weighed over eighteen hundred pounds! That was an exceptional animal. Biologists tell us that adult male “Kodiak” bears generally weigh somewhere just shy of a thousand pounds while larger trophy class specimens might go over twelve hundred. Females (of all species of bear) weigh about two thirds that of the males.

It is a little more complicated than an excess of food in the lush coastal regions creating larger bears. Rather, it is a survival adaptation resulting from thousands of generations of natural selection. For example, in this nutrient-rich environment the largest bear can muscle its way to the best fishing spot or bully a smaller adversary away from a sow in heat to pass along its genes. Natural selection simply favors the larger animal.
In the bleak mountains of interior Alaska, a bear that size would be hard put to find enough fuel to feed such a body. Indeed, depending on the habitat, interior grizzlies may require from ten to one hundred square miles (per bear) to find enough forage to survive. Moreover, with such a low population density, merely finding a mate is a great challenge and added size bestows no advantage. Natural selection favors the smaller animal and those genes are the ones passed along. Same bear, different adaptations.

So, we find ourselves on this lush island, densely populated with enormous grizzly bears and we have to ask ourselves a question; how dangerous is that? And the answer is; not as dangerous as you would think. The very richness that makes such a profuse number of enormous critters possible also keeps them fat, happy and relatively even-tempered. Ask any biologist or guide familiar with both mountain and coastal grizzlies to opine about the relative dangers of these ursine cousins and they will uniformly tell you that the smaller mountain animal is much more unpredictable and dangerous. Much like dogs, the hungry and stressed animal is far more likely to bite you than the sleek and well-fed family pet.

 

Thanks, Otto!

These are not rare events around here. The state gets anywhere from 6 to 10 injuries and deaths a year, which doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that there's only a half million people in the state. Another 200 bears are shot in Defense of Life and Property - DLP they call it - and the hides are auctioned annually. Most of those are attacks also, but the bear loses because the human is armed and ready. I was armed when attacked, but just a hair slow in getting my rifle up, with disastrous results.

The paperback edition is finally out and the local newspaper in Kodiak is running a story about it tomorrow, Friday. It will be on the AP wire and I'm hoping other papers around the state will also pick it up. The local editor said they probably will, because bears are such a "thing" here. Such books are more of regional interest, but I do see a few sales in the UK/Europe with the Kindle version - most of those are likely to people planning to travel to Alaska or Canada. Anyway, I'm just excited to finally get this out in paper, thus the thread.

 

That does sound interesting, Otto. I would never have thought of cucumber.

 

We might as well all buy it...He won't stop until we all have it on bookshelf..

Ordering in a minute....If there are no pics I'm going to be flumuxed...

 

I'm sure they like Gin & Tonic flavored Biak's!

 

Here's the local paper with the story. Also, they found a WWII bomb on a beach. A Russian bomb...

http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/

 

It's funny how it wasn't a "real" book while it was an Ebook. You can make a decent return on Ebooks (you actually make more per sale with those than with paper books), but people just say "Ah, that's nice..." and change the subject if you bring it up. But, since that article ran yesterday everyone has been barraging me with questions and requests. I'm sure it won't be much of a seller outside Alaska and western Canada, but it's nice to get this thing on the radar locally.

 

Inspires me to write. However something with my own twist of unbelievable. I'll stand out on top of a metal pole next thunderstorm and let you know how it goes.
Pretty slick, hope your tale manages to fit in some bookcases comfortably.

My tight university budget that's reserved for courses and video games will have to delay my purchase.


Remember: Don't let the money and fame get to your head, or you'll be wanting to write a sequel!

 

Good book that the Seagull....sorry its age...the eyes...going...sequel...so its not seagull...

 

I have an important question about the bear attack:

Did you survive? Truly be a shame if you didn't, I generally like your posts.

 

Well, I wouldn't want to give away the ending...