Alaska or Not?

fanrgs wrote:
I began working off and on in Alaska in 1972 and continued to work there until the mid-1990s. I traveled all over the state, including remote parts of western Alaska and the Aleutians, by car, boat, small plane, and helicopter.

I took my wife to Alaska for the first time in 2000 by air, rented a car, and drove, flew, took tour boats, and rode the AMHS ferries to many fairly remote places in the state. We even went to Kodiak Island, home of the biggest brown bears in North America.

Last year, for the first time, we drove up the Cassiar to Alaska and back down the Alaska Highway. We boondocked, stayed in remote provincial park campgrounds, hiked, and photographed every animal we could get a camera aimed at, including a mama grizzly and her four yearling cubs near Valdez.

NOT ONCE during all those years did I carry a weapon of any kind, including bear spray (too much chance of getting myself, as Sue says). I was trained in being "bear aware", stayed in my vehicle if I could see large animals nearby, never traveled into the bush alone, carried a loud whistle, had "bear bells" on my pack in the early days, and stayed out of head-high alder and willow if at all possible.

After a few years, I became considerably more leery of meeting a cow moose with a calf than I was a bear. That was partly because they even have moose in very populated areas (like walking down the streets of Anchorage!).

If I survived 40 years of working in the bush and vacationing in Alaska without a weapon, you can survive one trip up there. If you still think you have to carry one, as other have said: it's very simple, take the ferry or fly up and forget traveling through Canada!