Ahkenaten grew up living and travelling throughout the Yukon and Northern British Columbia. This is a land with no roads. Where the horseflies carry off your young if you're not careful.
Yukon and Northern British Columbia (and Alaska) is the last refuge of the North American bear, (brown, black, grizzly). They are essentially extinct in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba where they were hunted to that point.
Ahkenaten has 'encountered' bears no less than 2 dozen times in his life. Usually this means he heard a rustling and turned to look just in time to see the bears ass as it's walking away --meaning it had been looking at him from a distance for a while already. Ahkenaten has had eye contact with a bear more than once. It was a holy experience for him. They are gentle gorgeous animals. We share so much on a basic level with them.
Ahkenaten understands the bear. He is a big animal that needs 25000 calories/day. The rest of it's time it conserves its energy which is why bears don't really hunt themselves. The law of survival for the bear is to get calories by the route of least resistance. It can't afford to chase down every rabbit or deer. If it tried it would starve.
Ahkenaten used to hunt. Ahkenaten grew tired of hunters. They shoot a juvenile grizzly in the ass then stuff and pose it like it was a vicious beast charging the hunter when it was shot. Yogi Bear is a more apt description of a bear's personality and motives than the fearsome poses he's seen the stuffed ones in.
Ahkenaten tires of listening to how dangerous a bear can be. In 18 years at Jasper National Park -- with a million+ visitors/year there have been only ten bear attacks resulting in 2 deaths. Ahkenaten remembers that one of those deaths was a Korean tourist who tried to pose for a photo
with the bear. Ahkenaten thinks this makes the common cold more dangerous. Even so Ahkenaten is more afraid of a bear encounter in the Jasper backcountry than anywhere else because they're used to seeing/smelling humans.
Ahkenaten read all the reading material provided by Jasper National Parks on how to be safe around bears...how to react if encountering a bear...how to use bear spray, etc.
Ahkenaten saw bear warnings everywhere in the park.
Ahkenaten went hiking into the backcountry for three nights - far away from the campers. It was rainy, muddy and prime bear season. Ahkenaten did not see a shred of evidence of even one bear.
Not one overturned log.
Not one footprint in the mud.
Not one scratched tree.
Not even one pile of mummified bear turd.
The only evidence of a bear Ahkenaten saw was the one that was road kill (or poached) on the way into the park.
Ahkenaten doesn't like people very much today.
Ahk
