You know it’s a good day when you actually wake up from your sleep. Fear. Alaska. Bears. You never really get used to falling asleep out here in the rainforests of South East Alaska. Knowing that the salmon are running, the Alaskan Brown Bears are hungry, we are unarmed and in their environment. It’s almost more dangerous to be on land here than on the ocean. The 20-25 foot tides, the ocean currents, the Alaskan gulf swells and the head winds are all conditions I can deal with, but the bears….well….It’s every Alaskans favourite storytime…….. 

I lay in my tent, full from dinner and run through in my mind about where and how I have stashed all of the items with scents to them. Most of them are up a tree, a ways from camp. A nightly ritual. The bear thoughts run through my mind, the stories, the thoughts of getting ripped out of my tent and maulled. I kind of laugh it off and make a conscious decision to allow it to escape my mind. I can only hope that I choose to react in the right way, when and if it happens. Fear is an intriguing thing and can limit oneself if one will let it. It can keep you tense, your senses sharp, your mind working if it’s not recognized. I lay on my back resting with my hands on my belly. I breathe deep and slide off into a meditation. I am drifting…..then suddenly…..that sense of fear, that thought of a bear enters back into my mind. My body is again tense, and all of my senses alert to every tiny noise and smell around me, as the wind also abates I lay still. Convinced there is nothing there, I breathe deep into my belly again. The wind picks up and dulls out the silence. I fall back into my meditation and the cycle starts again. Eventually I fall asleep until the songs of the morning birds wake me……

Just on 30 nights and mornings I have spent in this rainforest and it’s still the same. I just take it all in ….the fear, the reminders of the inherent dangers. I giggle and try to let it go.

You know it’s a good day when you actually wake up from your sleep……….