This story, Killer Bears of Alaska, was originally published in the March 1981 issue of Outdoor Life.
Do grizzly bears hold grudges? How dangerous are grizzlies? Ask Al Thompson, a 44-year-old Division of Fish and Wildlife Protection officer (game warden) who patrols Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. He won’t commit himself on the first question, but he doesn’t mince words on the second.
Al and his wife Joyce moved north from Casnovia, Michigan, in 1968, and they went deep into the Alaska Range to claim a mountain-backed, lakefront homestead. Their only neighbors were moose, caribou, wolves, and bears.
“There were eight grizzlies living near,” he told me. “We knew and named them all.”
One night a grizzly tore out the side of the temporary cabin they slept in. They frightened it off. Another bear packed off an outboard motor and dumped it into the lake. Others chewed on their snow machines.
One night their dog barked an alarm. Al picked up his fully-loaded .44 Magnum revolver, stepped out of the cabin, and found a big grizzly standing on hind legs peering down at him. Al didn’t want to kill it, so he aimed carefully at the sky but near to the bear’s head and fired. The magnum bucked five times, but the bear stood, weaving and threatening. Then Al heard Joyce and saw her . 30/06 poke over his shoulder and point at the bear.
“It swayed a bit more, then dropped to all fours and left,” Al said.
That bear hung around for weeks, and it got cranky when the Thompsons neared the alder patch it was in, warning them with growls. Rifle fire didn’t frighten it. A visiting hunter finally killed the bear.
In 1971 Al and Dick Dykema, who also is a warden, hiked 15 miles into the Kenai National Moose Range to bowhunt for moose. Al killed a bull with a 60-inch spread, and Dick got one with a 55-inch spread.
In 1972 Al decided to hunt in the same area to try to get an even larger bull. This time Joyce went along. Al took his 65-pound bow and glass arrows and carried his .44 Magnum. Joyce took her .30/06. A friend with horses was to come after the meat; Moose Range is closed to mechanized equipment.
Before the hunt Joyce made meat sacks, ironing them so they would take less space in packs. It was near dark when, after an 8 ½-hour uphill hike, they reached their campsite in the highlands between Skilak and Tustumena Lake.
Next day they built a lean-to of poles and plastic, cut firewood, and picked up scraps left by other campers. The following dawn the Thompsons were out stalking moose. They saw two bulls, but they couldn’t get close enough for a shot with his bow. That evening a full moon flooded the Kenai with light.
The Thompsons follow a routine when camping, as do most Alaskans who live in bear country. Al laid his revolver on a piece of yellow paper towel so he could see it in the dark. The flashlight went in a certain spot, as did the loaded rifle. That night Al left his sleeping bag partly unzipped so he could reach the rifle or pistol quickly, if need be, but Joyce zipped hers shut. The campfire burned out, and the Thompsons slept until about 3:30 a.m.
Al and Joyce told me what happened after that as I sat in the lovely log cabin home they’ve built overlooking the Kenai River. Al is a rugged 180-pounder, 5 feet 9 inches tall, broad shouldered, powerful. Joyce is slender, tall, and athletic. A smooth scar four or five inches long runs from Al’s left eyebrow to the top of his head. His left arm has great puckers in it where huge teeth once penetrated. His voice was strong, but there was a faint feeling of wonder in it as he talked, as if he still had difficulty believing what happened.
“I came awake, sensing something was wrong, a feeling anyone can get who has spent a lot of time in the woods,” he told me. “I whispered to Joyce, ‘Don’t move, something’s out there.’ My hand slid out for the rifle, then it was as if a mad bull had lunged into our lean-to. A bear came right through the top, and in seconds the place was a shambles.”
“I tried to lift up the rifle with my right hand, but it flew off into the dark. The bear was trying to tear Joyce out of her sleeping bag. I reached over and grabbed fur, I think around the ear, and hit as hard as I could with my right fist.”
“The bear immediately turned on me. I had no time to grab my .44 or the flashlight. The bear grabbed my left arm and tossed me into the corner of the lean-to. Before I could move it leaped and grabbed my scalp with its teeth, then picked me up and ran into the night, clutching me with its right front paw and shuffling sideways on hind feet. That’s when the claws ripped me, leaving a great Z-shaped wound, which is now a scar on the side of my chest.”
“After shuffling on its hind feet for a while, the bear dropped down. Still holding me with its right paw and still gripping my scalp with its teeth. Then my scalp tore away, and the bear dropped me onto a mossy hummock. By then it had carried me about 80 feet.”
“I knew my only chance was to convince the bear I was dead, but I didn’t want my belly up with my vitals exposed .. With my right arm — my left arm was useless — I held myself belly down.”
“I held my breath until I almost passed out, playing dead, while the bear chewed on my back and batted me on the side of my head with its claws.”
“I think it left because I played dead. I didn’t move until I couldn’t hear it.”
“Joyce might have spooked the bear off. She had white long johns on and had crawled out of her sleeping bag. She was standing trying to see where I was. She was unhurt.”
“I staggered to my feet, wondering if Joyce was all right. I went back to camp and Joyce. Blood poured down my face.”
“It was up to Joyce then. She found the rifle and lit a fire. She bandaged me with the meat cloths she had packed, got me into the two sleeping bags, and put me near the fire. She gave me aspirin and strong tea with a lot of sugar in it. It was three hours until daylight, and we had to decide whether Joyce should leave me and go get a helicopter, or if I could make it out on my own.”
“I didn’t want her to go along with that bear still around, so at daylight we started walking. My head lay on my left shoulder because I’d been hurt on the right side and it had weakened my neck. I carried my .44 and Joyce had the rifle. We half expected the bear to waylay us.”
“I didn’t dare stop. About a mile from the highway I sat down, but I knew I’d never get up again if I didn’t go on. I finished hiking those 15 miles, beating Joyce to the highway. I stopped the first car and asked the driver to call an ambulance.”
Three doctors worked for hours stitching together the great gashes in Al’s body. He needed six pints of blood. For two days he hovered between life and death, but on the third day Joyce saw color in his face and a glint in his eyes.
Al later heard that a party of non-resident hunters on horses had been in the same area earlier. They were trying to get pictures and had chased a brown bear sow with two big cubs. One of the hunters wounded the sow.
That isn’t the end of the story. On November 10, about six weeks after the September 23, 1972, attack on the Thompsons, and only 10 miles away, hunter Leland C. Collins, of Anchorage, was after a moose when he came across a brown bear sow with two big cubs. The bear heard or saw Collins, who later told Al, “It came bounding, looking for me.”
Collins shot, hitting the bear in the head, and momentarily drove it off. Then the bear came back and Collins got another shot into it. He drove it off again, but not before the bear managed to slash his head and chest.
Al was still bandaged from his attack when he visited the just-hospitalized Collins.
“His wounds were the same as mine,” Al said. ”The bear that chewed on me apparently had only one large tooth-the upper right canine. I had a big groove from it in the bone of my arm where it partly destroyed the main nerves, and in my scalp. From the bite marks it looked as if the other teeth were worn or broken off, and my arm especially was mashed more than punctured. Where the bear hit into my back there was one big hole, and then other, much smaller, tooth marks. The marks on Collins were similar.”
Though his left arm was still almost useless, and he was weak and bandaged, Al joined Dick Dykema and a state trooper in a search for the bear that mauled Collins. They flew in by helicopter.
“I had a grudge against that bear,” Al said. “I think it was the same one that got me. I carried a slug-filled 12-gauge autoloader across the crook of my bum left arm.
”We found tracks and a lot of blood where Collins had hit the bear. Once we went around a big pile of brush. The bear came out behind us, so we were right on top of it. Other troopers were in the noisy helicopter, flying nearby to protect us. They weren’t woodsmen and didn’t understand that in the woods you don’t want noise. The bear got away.”
The next day Al, Dykema, and troopers again searched for the bear. By this time Commissioner Chapple, Al’s boss, learned that the still shaky Thompson was on the revenge trail, and he ordered him out of the woods. Dykema and others continued the hunt on horses. But the bear was never found.
Al doesn’t hunt with a bow now because of his bear-damaged left arm, but he still hunts with a rifle. Last year he tracked and killed a crippled grizzly that threatened a fishery research crew. He has no fear of bears or hatred for them, but he has a lot of respect. He now carries super protection when he patrols in bear country—a sawed-off double l0-gauge filled with 935-grain handloads.
Al is scarred for life. He is tired of the attention he’s been given because of the attack, but he agreed to tell Outdoor Life about his experience because he feels it might help others. Al is aware that bear attacks are increasing in Alaska. Action by the Carter Administration, which establishes vast new parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas in Alaska, probably will attract more visitors, and bear attacks will increase.
If a woodswise, experienced, and armed hunter with Al Thompson’s savvy can get mauled, what chance has an unarmed and inexperienced person when a bear attacks? Practically none.
My incomplete Alaska bear files include details about six human deaths from bear attacks and 10 severe maulings since 1972. Most attacks involved brown/grizzly bears (scientists consider Alaska’s coastal brown bear and the interior grizzly as a single highly variable species). Prior to about 1970 Alaskans could expect an average of one severe mauling by a grizzly each year. Some victims died, some didn’t.
Bears attack humans for several reasons: They are hungry; they are protecting a kill that a human has blundered upon; they are protecting cubs; they are surprised and act defensively. Some bears hold a grudge for a past wounding, as in the Al Thompson mauling. A bear that loses a fight with another bear may attack a human to bolster injured pride. Bears have great dignity and pride. As with other animals, including man, some bears are probably natural soreheads and attack just for the hell of it.
The spectacular nature of bear attacks and the resulting publicity can give the impression that Alaska is filled with bears just waiting to maul visitors. Not so. The chance of a bear attacking a reasonably prudent backpacker is slight. Bears are naturally shy, and most flee at the sight of man, especially in areas where they are hunted. The Mount McKinley National Park statistics should be reassuring: 1.4 million tourists (including about 200,000 who hiked off the road system and camped at least overnight) visited between 1971 and 1980, and in that time there were no deaths due to mauling and only nine reported maulings.
You can improve the odds by following Al Thompson’s basic rules: no food in camp and a clean camp area; a firearm and flashlight in a handy place when sleeping. Avoid camping in a pass that bears and other game commonly use, or on major trails. Make plenty of noise when traveling in brushy or timbered bear country so you don’t surprise a grizzly (many hikers wear a small bell or place rocks in a tin-can rattler).
Don’t crowd a bear to get close-up photographs. My records show that most of those who survive bear attacks have played dead, as did Al Thompson. An attacking bear will usually bite and claw so long as its victim struggles. When the victim lies still, most bears leave. Sometimes a bear stands and watches his victim, waiting for movement. It will resume biting at the slightest move, as many victims have learned.
Grizzlies can climb trees, though most won’t, and a perch in a stout tree has saved many lives. Unfortunately there are often no climbable trees where you may encounter a grizzly. Also don’t run from a bear, unless there is a nearby tree or other shelter. Bears are tempted to chase fleeing prey.
Read Next: These Alaskans Stopped a Charging Grizzly at 5 Yards with Their 10mm Pistols
When in bear country pack a rifle with the wallop of a . 30/06 or better. Be prepared to use it day and night. You might pack a rifle for a lifetime and use it just once, but that one time could justify all these years of packing.
Unless you’re a gilt-edged expert at using it, forget that .44 Magnum. It’s good only when the bear is right on top of you, and by then you’ve waited too long. The .44 may save your life, but the chances of being mauled by a determined grizzly are good if that’s your only protection.
If you do everything you should, as Al and Joyce Thompson did, and a bear still mauls you, what then? Here’s Al Thompson’s advice: “Never give up, no matter how much a bear has chewed on your body or how much you hurt.”
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