Into the Wilderness of Yukon's Bonnet Plume for Grizzly and Giant Moose
Widrig's Story

Into the Wilderness of Yukon's Bonnet Plume for Grizzly and Giant Moose

Story by Greg Kushnak
Fair Chase Magazine Winter 1999

In 1947, Jim Bond discovered a bonanza for giant moose on his biological survey expedition in the Yukon. Bond was exploring a blank spot on the map that wasn't covered by the wildlife surveys of Sheldon and Selous. Accounts of Bond's hunt were published in the book From out of the Yukon, and his description of the scenery and awesome giant moose enthralled me ever since I read the book as a young boy.

When I researched this area many years later, I found that the country had changed very little since 1947, and thanks to modern wildlife management practices, the giant moose were apparently still gigantic. In fact, a 71-inch, 244-point moose was taken out of this area a year or two before I had arrived in 1988. Clearly, the management regulations and individual strategies used by outfitters in this area were assuring sustainable high-quality trophies: hunting areas were not used more than once per season, and usually not more than once every two or three years; aerial surveys were conducted in the off-season to make sure that trophy-quality animals were not being over-harvested.

After a lifetime of dreaming about this hunt, I was finally heading towards the Bonnet Plume for giant moose and grizzly. The floatplane flight from Whitehorse to base camp took nearly three hours over the vast and wild Yukon Territory -a long flight by today's standards. But if l had traveled to the same camp in 1947, the trip would have taken perhaps 12 days by horse from the nearest road, 180 miles away at Mayo. Yukon hunts in those days were typically 50 days or more. It must have been wonderful to experience an expedition of such length and magnitude, to be able to observe the seasonal changes in the foliage colors, and the behavioral changes of moose through the various phases of the rut.

Base camp was located at Bonnet Plume Lake amidst the awesome September scenery of the Wernecke Mountains. Base camp consisted of a few cabins for bunkhouses, storage and cooking, a wolverine-damaged cache elevated on poles, and a resident hawk-owl. I was introduced to Rick Mortimer, my guide. From here, we would embark on a classic horseback hunt using remote wilderness spike camps. This was going to be hunting like it was 50 years ago, with long rides over trails rarely traveled, and sleeping on the ground in tents. In our fast-paced technological world, this type of hunting was mentally and physically refreshing.

The next day my guide and I headed south with three packhorses to the head of the south fork of the Bonnet Plume. It was a beautiful, broad valley with wall-to-wall willow and buck brush (dwarf birch). Spires of spruce trees dotted the landscape sporadically in stunning contrast to the brush-covered landscape. Spruce also occurred as narrow thickets along the hillsides. It was a classic view of Yukon scenery, with the country looking crisp and fresh, as if it were just created yesterday. We continued toward the pass into the Nadaleen River. The pass was huge and we climbed so gradually that it was hard to know when we had reached the top. Fescue and caribou lichen formed a soft, spongy and moist ground cover. This was big willow country.

The moose we were looking for were tundra moose, commonly known as Alaska-Yukon moose. They have some ecological, behavioral, and mating-strategy differences from the taiga moose of farther south. Consequently, there are some differences in hunting methods; in the case of tundra moose, the "spot-and-stalk" method seems to be more common.

We finally reached the divide just before dark and made a willow camp a short distance beyond in the Nadaleen drainage. We were camped on the continental divide, where the Bonnet Plume flows to the Arctic Ocean via the Peel and Mackenzie Rivers, and the Nadaleen flows to the Bering Sea via the Stewart and Yukon Rivers. A small lake was perched on the divide, where the outfitter would be able to land his Super Cub floatplane, if necessary, to transport meat back to base camp.

It was still sunny and warm, but the tops of the mountains were white, as is typical for the third week of September. The lower slopes and valleys were brown, and the leaves were all gone except on a few willows. The horses relish willow leaves, and apparently can stay in condition on them earlier in the season before they turn brown. As we set up camp, a Bull Moose was grunting on the hill above us. Spike camp was primitive, but comfortable and adequate, considering the remoteness of this expedition. Each of us had a backpack tent, and a lean-to was constructed from willows, rope, and a tarp for cooking and to keep the tack dry. Not a whole lot different than Charles Sheldon's camps during his hunting trips through the Yukon in the early 1900s. Saddle pads were used for bedding. We ran a cold camp for a few days to avoid spooking all the game out of the country with smoke. Besides, we were willow camping with no trees for firewood. The most warmth you get from a willow fire is going after the wood.

For the next two days, we rode in the rain into a nearby valley and glassed from a vantage point for several hours. Using the spotting scopes, we picked every bush apart, branch by branch, looking for anything off-color or an antler tine. With the scopes, we could cover a lot more country than with our legs, and besides, it was not good to tramp all over the place leaving our scent trail to spook game. Back at camp, I kept vigilance for moose, caribou, and grizzly that might pass through. In this country, you're hunting as soon as your eyes are open in the morning. An arctic ground squirrel took up residence in our camp, cleaning up on leftover oats from the horses. In the six days we were camped here, the squirrel must have gained several pounds! Everywhere I looked, there were white "clouds" of willow ptarmigans flying in flocks of a hundred or more birds, bunching up for winter. One flock on the hill above camp had about 150 birds, and when they all "chuckled" at once, it sounded outrageously funny.

After two days of glassing this area and seeing no moose, we decided to leave the camp where it was and take a day trip about five miles down the Nadaleen where we would be at timberline. If there was a good bull in the vicinity, he could be hunted without camp activity spooking him out of the valley. This ride down the Nadaleen had the most beautiful scenery I'd ever seen. We were in a big willow valley with spruce thickets on the side hills, and beautiful side drainages and mountain peaks. Even though the frost-painted leaves were gone, the country had a variety of rich colors across its landscape.

Along the way, we spotted a young 48-inch bull with a long bell that was blond all the way along his back. We also spotted a cow and calf of the same color a little further on. Not finding a bull with her, we continued down toward the forks of the Nadaleen. The river here was small, about the size of a large creek. Two very nice moose antler sheds lay along the river's edge, indicating that moose wintered here. My guide told me that moose migrated to lower areas when winter first begins, but move back up here for the rest of the winter to avoid the colder air that settles in the lower valleys. At one point along the way, we traveled a tall willow trail and came upon a monstrous beaver lodge. These are willow beavers up here, and their hides are prime in September, unlike the aspen beaver of lower elevations. Willow beavers are smaller, as there is only willow for food, and they have a shorter summer feeding season. But they are less wary than lowland beavers and easier to trap.

As we rode, there was an increasing abundance of little draws or coulees of willow with spruce fringing their sides. These draws were ideal spots for bulls to corral and protect their harems. As we arrived at the forks, one such coulee looked like a good spot for our next campsite. We dismounted for a moment to look the place over. Just as we were leaving the thicket, straight in front of us 40 yards away, was a huge bull looking at us. Rick was busy looking at the ground trying to find a trail and didn't see the moose. I hollered, "There's a moose, and he's a shooter!"

The bull looked awesome standing there, and he had it all - front palms, lots of wicked points, wide palms, and lots of spread. Rick said, "Get off your horse," and that's when the confusion began. Once off the horse, I couldn't see above the willows. Rick said, "Shoot him," but I couldn't see anything but willows. Then a couple of the cows bolted and took off down the valley. Next, the bull and another cow ran up into a patch of spruce.

I slowly walked out into the willows and searched for a hummock to stand on to get my view above the canopy. I could see glimpses of the moose in the trees. Then I moved to a slender lone spruce that would serve as a good shooting rest. There was no sense in being absolutely quiet, as the moose already knew of our presence. So the tactic was to make him think we were other moose by looking and sounding like moose. As I moved to a shooting position in the willows, I held my rifle horizontal above my head to mimic a rival bull.

Rick held the horses out in the open for bait as he grunt-called. He tied them up before any shooting started, as we were a long and remote distance from base camp and didn't want to lose our transportation. I waited in position 30 agonizing minutes without spotting the animal, thinking that moose slipped away from me on the opposite side of the spruce thicket. Rick started blade-calling and breaking sticks. Blade calling is the ultimate challenge, and can really get a bull cranked up for a charge. Then all of a sudden, I heard the awesome sound of the bull's antlers resonating as he beat the heck out of some unfortunate spruce tree. Rick hollered, "Here he comes!"

I readied my rifle just as a cow bolted straight across the opening in front of me with the bull in pursuit. The moose were moving quite fast, and I knew I would never see this bull again if I didn't act quickly. The first shot was a good hit, and it turned the bull downhill, giving me a chance for a broadside shot. It was another tough shot - the moose was moving fast and about to disappear, and only the upper half of him was visible above the willows. The bullet connected, and all I could see was the huge antlers tipping over. This was followed by a tremendous c-r-r-ash as the giant beast fell to the ground.

This was the ultimate moment of all of my hunting experiences. The giant Alaska-Yukon moose is the true symbol of the wilderness, and I couldn't believe that I had finally collected this wonderful animal.

It took four steady hours of labor to care for the animal. Taking photos, skinning, and quartering a lot of animal is a lot of work. The hide was incredibly tough to cut and very thick on the back (nearly 1/2 inch). After removing a shoulder, I could barely drag the quarter away from the carcass, and then for only a few feet. I could not budge a hindquarter. The bones of the animal were massive beyond belief, and I couldn't get over the size of the shoulder blades. His stomach was empty, as bulls don't feed during the rut.

This moose also had blond hairs on its back, producing a gorgeous color. But it is just as common to see moose in this country that are all dark in color. The antlers were very nice looking with front palms and wicked points. They had points along the full length of the outer margins with no knobs or smooth areas. We taped the antler spread at about 63 inches, with one palm measuring nearly 17 inches. I pondered the structure of these antlers as it related to ecological fitness and trophy score. The left antler had an exceptionally long dagger-point behind the bay. I wondered how many adversaries were killed or intimidated by this point. Obviously, it was an effective offensive structure that contributed to the animal's fitness and breeding success; and yet, the point would only add one inch of credit to the score. The well developed, shield-like brow palms appeared to be effective defensive structures that could deflect blows to the eyes and face. Many tremendous bulls with huge rear palms have only a fork on the brow of the antlers. I wondered if such bulls would be defensively disadvantaged. It seemed to me that the width of the brow palms would be a good thing to add to the trophy score.

I had been spending quite a bit of time admiring the animal - his color and hair texture, his size and form, when Rick reminded me to get to work or we wouldn't reach camp before dark. Riding horses through this country in the dark during the moose rut is best avoided if possible. We left the cape, hums and meat there, deciding to return the next day with the packhorses. We made it back to camp at a fast pace (the horses knew where the oats were), arriving about dark. After supper, Rick recited from memory Robert Service's "Cremation of Sam McGee" in its entirety. In the morning, we had bacon, eggs, and moose steak, and packed a lunch of peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwiches. I could easily live on moose meat and not tire of it. This moose was killed September 22nd in full rut, and was well "perfumed," yet the meat was delicious and reasonably tender. I had read that rutting moose are not edible. Rick had eaten over two dozen moose and they were always good, rut or no rut. So much for that theory.

We reached the area where we had left the bull in the early afternoon, we tied the horses some distance away, took our loaded rifles, and cautiously approached the kill site. There were no grizzlies, only ravens and jays. We had the moose boned and loaded in a couple of hours. The antlers on the top pack were awesome to view from behind as we rode back to camp. The rack was packed just like a moose would carry it when his nose is up - front palms and tines upward. They flowed through the brush and trees without snagging, like a boat hull. On the way back, we had to chase off a young bull attempting to romance our horses. We arrived at camp after dark, and the northern lights descended upon us like curtains, streaks, and sheets of light folded together in an awesome display directly over our heads.

The next day, it snowed in the morning, cleared in the afternoon, then rained in the evening. Weather changes here incredibly fast, and without warning. We spent the day butchering, caping, packing, and fleshing the moose. It takes an incredible amount of time to take care of the animals once you shoot 'em, and a three-species hunt would be a real busy project. As Rick worked on the animal, a weasel packed off the scraps from skinning the moose nose. Weasels don't put on fat for the winter, so they must either cache food or hunt constantly. This one would winter quite well. By the end of the day we had hauled three horse-loads of meat, cape and antlers to the little lake for Chris, my outfitter, to pick up with the floatplane. That would be the last I saw of my moose until returning to base camp a week later.

We broke camp early the following day and moved to higher country to look for grizzly and caribou. Now that the berries are gone, the bears were likely to have moved to the high country to ambush caribou and to seek denning sites. We left the Nadaleen and headed for the upper reach of the south fork of the Bonnet Plume. We found a suitable campsite among the willows about halfway up the valley. This is high country, all willows and rocks with no spruce, and alpine at the upper end of the valleys. From there, we would look for caribou above the brush line, crossing valleys, and heading to the tops of mountains for the rut beginning October 1st.

It had snowed during the night, which whitened things up a bit. While Rick was cooking breakfast, I climbed up the hill to do some glassing. In the first tributary valley above camp, about a mile or two away, I spotted a grizzly walking down the drainage. Then it turned at the brush line and side-hilled its way effortlessly up the main valley. The bear stopped at the next tributary for half an hour, digging for squirrels, roots, or something similar. The wind was from the north, right toward the bear, and we were on opposite sides of the main valley with two miles of seven-foot tall buck brush between us. There was no possible way to approach the bear at this time. The bear continued up the main valley and disappeared in the brush. I was fairly certain that the bear's intentions were to travel up the valley, so I would have a good chance of getting a crack at him later when we went up there looking for caribou.

After breakfast, the weather cleared, and we rode up the valley toward a pass that leads to the Stewart River. We spotted one caribou cow low in the bottom and a bull and two cows way on the top of a rough, pointed mountain ridge where you would expect goats to be. These caribou belong to the Redstone herd, and are behaviorally, physically, and ecologically identical to mountain caribou. But since we are north of the Stewart River, the animals are entered as barren ground caribou for records book purposes. The ridge was too steep to get up to the caribou, and besides, I was in no mood for hunting caribou. All I could think about was that grizzly. I glassed further down the mountain to about willow line and found the bear again, about a half-mile up the valley. Fortunately, by this time, the wind had changed, coming from the bear and toward us. The bear was moving downhill and then disappeared in the brush.

We were getting fairly close to the Stewart River pass, so the valley was becoming narrower and funneling us and the grizzly closer together. As we arrived at the pass, I saw what I thought was a dark wolf running across the stream about 300 yards below us. A few moments later, it reappeared and was running up the draw right toward us. Only this time, it wasn't a wolf, it was a wolverine. Torn between shooting the wolverine and looking for the bear, I reluctantly handed my horse to Rick and walked down to a knob for an ambush. As I waited, the wolverine didn't show. I either spooked him or he had already slipped by. I looked up the slope for the wolverine, but instead spotted the bear coming down. I didn't spook the wolverine - it had been the bear!

I belly-crawled a short distance for a shot. The bear disappeared in the brush for a moment, and when it reappeared, I shouldered my .300 Weatherby, chambered with a 180-grain Barnes-X cartridge, and readied myself for a 150 to 200-yard shot. My shot flipped the bear over backwards. Since I didn't hear any response or commotion from the bear, I walked back up the hill and approached the presumably "dead" bear from above. The bear had slid 20 feet down the slope from where it was hit, with no sign of a struggle. The bullet went into the front left shoulder, and out the other side behind the opposite shoulder. He must have died instantly.

The bear had a beautiful silver-tipped brown hide with various shades of red and blond, but with dark legs. The teeth had a fair amount of wear and tooth analysis determined it to be seven years of age. The color of a grizzly is fascinating and more important to me than size. These sub-arctic bears have a seven-month denning season (compared to five months for Montana grizzlies), and therefore don't get as large as southern or coastal versions. But their heads are large in proportion to their bodies, and the color and quality of their hides are superior.

It took a couple of hours to skin the bear. I stuffed the skull in my daypack, and Rick tried to tie the hide on behind the saddle, but the horse wouldn't have anything to do with the project. So we left the hide, planning to return the following day with a packhorse.

Spotting and following this grizzly bear had given me a wilderness sensation that was very thrilling, and altogether different than what I experienced with the moose. Both animals were wonderful symbols of the wilderness, and collecting both of them on this hunt provided a more complete Yukon experience.

The next morning we rode two hours back up the pass with a pack horse to get the bear hide. As we approached, a huge golden eagle flew off the carcass, spooking my horse sideways so that we almost landed right in the middle of the bear hide. Luckily, the hide was covered with four inches of snow, so the horse didn't detect it. Otherwise, things would have fallen apart in a real hurry. This kind of expedition hunting is dangerous.

One minute you're on top of the world and the next finds you underneath three horses. I could not believe the immensity of the eagle and his wings. Ptarmigans were all over the valley. I saw tracks of a marten, which was most likely hunting the birds. Since we hadn't sighted any caribou, we decided to return to base camp the next day and work on the bear hide.

Two Bull Moose were at spike camp when we returned. Rick pulled out his .30-30 in case he had to shoot a charging bull, a gored horse, or both. The bulls were probably courting the other two packhorses that we had left in camp for the day. It was the last two weeks of September and the bulls are "in love." They are much easier to hunt during this time, as they are out in the open more, moving around, vocal, and easily called. Just breaking branches for a fire brings 'em in. I was able to see why a moose is called twice; the first call would bring his head up to attention, and the second call allowed him to pinpoint our location.

We packed up the next morning and headed for base camp, arriving just as a snowstorm hit and dumped three inches, turning the country white. Base camp was quite a comfort after spiking out for 10 days. Late September in the Yukon is only for the adventuresome. But that's what Alaska-Yukon moose and grizzly hunting is all about - adventure in wild and remote places.

The moon was half full that night, and produced a beautiful reflection on the lake. One of the hunters caught a bunch of lake trout earlier in the day, and our base camp cook used a delicious recipe to cook them for supper. The next day, I cleaned the bear skull while Rick fleshed and salted the hide. Chris and the other guides were pulling horseshoes and getting ready for the eight day, 180-mile ride out to Elsa (near Mayo). It's too rough of a trip (mostly brush, ice, and bogs) to trot the horses, so they walk 'em. The guides invited me to ride along, but I figured I was gone from family and work long enough. It would have been a neat adventure though.

As the Otter arrived to take me out, I looked down the Bonnet Plume for the last time, and realized how much the Yukon had been a part of my soul for most of my life. I was thankful to have finally connected with it.

Widrig's Story

Story by G. Calef
Big Game Adventures Magazine - Summer 2000

The jaws of a grizzly bear had crushed his face. He was blind and had no idea whether he'd ever regain his sight. He had just endured 24 hours of agony and fear in a remote wilderness 100 miles from the nearest human settlement, not knowing whether he'd live or die. Now, as outfitter Chris Widrig lay in a nursing station waiting for a plane to medi-vac him to Vancouver for emergency surgery, he heard a voice in his ear, the voice of the local conservation officer. "Chris, normally in these circumstances we deal with the bear lethally." Widrig's first words were, "I don't want that bear shot. She was just doing what she was supposed to do - defending her young. Just leave her alone; she isn't going to hurt anyone else out there in that wilderness."

When I first heard that story on the radio in Whitehorse it actually brought tears to my eyes I thought "That's a real northerner, a real mountain man, someone who has the strength of his convictions". What a contrast to the urban "environmentalists" of Whitehorse who are all for saving the "endangered" grizzly bears until one happens to knock over a garbage can in their "wilderness subdivision" or walk within ten miles of their child's school ground. Then they're on the telephone to the conservation officers to come and "deal with it lethally". A dozen or more grizzlies were killed in that manner around Whitehorse recently in a single autumn. If you want to have grizzlies around, then you have to be willing to let them live around you. I decided then and there to look up Chris Widrig and tell the story of such a principled man. So one bright spring morning just before he headed out for the spring bear hunt, we put on the coffeepot and this is what he told me:

It all happened on the first hunt of the season. We started at our Goz Lake base camp, an absolutely beautiful spot near the headwaters of the Snake River in the northern Yukon. Our outfit consisted of two couples and one guide and me, and interestingly enough, the two women were sisters. Right at the beginning we had two little coincidences that seemed minor at the time, but these seemingly small factors played a big role in what happened later. The first problem was everyone had too much gear. I'd planned to have a horse, but at the last minute everyone put all their gear out and there was just too much to fit on all the packhorses. We had 11 horses, and believe it or not I didn't have a horse. Second, we had six hunters in camp and two of them arrived without their rifles because the airlines lost them. So the rifle I had intended to bring myself on this hunt I had to lend to another hunter who was going to a different camp.

So I walked the whole way, some 60 miles, and I planned to walk all the way back too - I like walking anyway, so it didn't bother me - I've done it before. So it was quite an adventure even before I got hurt. It was a three-day trip to get over to Delores camp where we took two sheep. On the third day we ran into a grizzly with a small cub of the year, right on the trail She stood up, looked at us - about 100 yards away.

Of course I had no gun, so I yelled to the hunters and the guide behind me, "Get off your horses and get your guns". The guide came up and handed me his rifle. At this point one of the hunters made an interesting comment.

"Well, I don't have any bullets in my gun. Should I?" That's what he said.

And I said, "Yeah, you should have bullets in your gun".

The bear stood there watching us for about ten minutes and then we finally made a big detour to get around her and continued on. She didn't harass us.

Now just to jump ahead to the second where I got attacked. The same fellow, who didn't have any bullets in his gun, still didn't have any bullets in his gun! He was the first hunter to get his rifle out of the scabbard and no bullets! It might not have made any difference, but he just never did learn.

Anyway, from Delores camp one hunter took a beautiful 39-1/2" ram that was only six years old! The second sheep was smaller at 35", but he was broomed and much older. We've taken sheep up to 43" with 15" bases in this area. Then on August 9th we packed up and headed down to a camp on the Snake River, which would be about halfway back to Goz. But we never made it.

We weren't hunting because we don't hunt moose in August. We were planning to maybe try for caribou around Goz Lake but it wasn't a big issue because we already had our sheep. We weren't hunting Grizzly at all. August 9th was the first day the weather started to come down a bit. In fact there was ground fog; it was really eerie. Up until then it had been sunny and hot, almost too hot to hunt sheep. We packed up the horses and got away about 10:00 in the morning. We couldn't see more than 100 yards for part of the day. It was drizzling and raining lightly too. The country is essentially all above timberline. We stopped our horses and had a sandwich at noon, maybe about half a mile from where I was attacked.

When we continued after lunch 1 was walking maybe 100 yards ahead. At this point I was daydreaming; I wasn't paying as much attention as 1 probably should have. The two hunters with their rifles were right behind me, followed by a bunch of packhorses, and the wives and the guide were right at the end. In fact the guide and one of the women never even saw the attack because they were so far behind.

I almost walked by the bear. I didn't see her - I just heard something off to my left, like a "woof". I glanced over and immediately saw her. She stood up on her hind legs and I saw the cub very close to her. It was a two-year old cub, a fairly big cub. She was close, really close, maybe 30 yards. I knew I was in trouble right away. I knew how far away I was from the horses, I had no gun, and there was a sow with a cub right there. My worst nightmare; it had never happened before. I'd never been that close to a bear. The reason I hadn't seen her was she'd been feeding in the willows by that little creek. The willows were only about up to my waist, but she had her head down and I didn't see her. She heard me, "woofed", and stood up.

You know you hear all these things from the bear biologists about what you're supposed to do in this or that situation, but you just do what your instincts tell you. You can't feel bad about not following the rules. The first thing I did was yell, "BEAR BEAR!" I was trying to alert the people behind me, but I wasn't as concerned about them as I was about myself, because they were well behind. So I screamed and I turned and ran, directly away from the bear, not back toward the horses because I'd almost passed her already. And I ran fast! One of the hunters said I looked like a white Carl Lewis streaking across the tundra. They all mentioned it; they said they'd never seen anyone run so fast.

But I only ran about ten steps before I looked back. I wanted to see what the scenario was going to be, whether she was going to run away or what. I glanced over my shoulder (I was still running) and at that point, just for a fraction of a second, she was going to her cub. I thought she was going to push the cub away and go, and I'd be alright. Then I took maybe ten more steps, and again glanced over my shoulder, which is hard to do because it's spongy tundra. This time she was coming right at me. I was probably 50 yards away because I'd put some distance between us, but I started running even faster. At some point I also looked back at the hunters. I could only see one hunter and the white horse, Duffy. From what I could see, in that fraction of a second, they were having a hard time with the horses. The horses were rearing up and going berserk.

Next time I looked back she was right behind me. Man they're fast; it's unbelievable! So I had to make a decision: "Do I want to keep running and have her nail me from behind?" Again my instinct told me to stop so I turned around and faced her. I really started to scream. I tried to bluff her; I tried to make myself look big by holding my arms out. "I'M A GREAT BIG BEAR!" I growled at her. I did whatever I could think of. I tried everything. She wasn't a huge bear, perhaps a medium size bear that for a mountain grizzly is about a six-foot bear. When she stood up she was probably not much taller than I was.

I can still remember every single detail of the attack. She was maybe ten or 12 feet away when I turned around, and for just a fraction of a second when I was yelling, she veered off to the left. The main thing I remember was her eyes, those yellow eyes. They were small but I was looking right at her and I could see into her eyes. She was also making a noise, halfway between a growl and gasping for breath, and snapping her teeth. Her ears were absolutely flat, and she was pissed off. I don't know why; I was trying to run away from her!

Then she came right for me. I put my hands out and when the bear hit me I thought she broke my hand. She bit right through my hand and then she went immediately for my face - for my eyes. It was extremely painful. One of the hunter's wives said she'd never heard such screaming. When she came for my face I could see her teeth wide open, and that was it. After that I didn't have my eyes open for about three days, and one eye is still not working properly. Actually, I'm legally blind in my left eye. When she went into my face I could feel the bones crunching. Her jaws made about three bites across my face. Crunch, crunch, crunch! You can draw a circle around where the damage was - my eye sockets and nose. I think she had me in a bear hug, with her paws around my back.

I fell backwards. I had a Gore-Tex raincoat on, and I think that it actually saved me a lot of grief because after that she started to bite my back (around my kidneys) and actually broke my left leg below the knee. This was extremely painful. I do believe the Gore-Tex saved me; she couldn't get through to damage the spine. After the bites in the face I was totally helpless - there was no more fighting back. I was just trying to deal with the pain, and I think I went limp. She stopped for maybe three seconds and then there was a tremendous blow. This was the only time she ever used her claws and raked. She really swatted me one. There are four deep scars on my thigh, just a fraction of an inch from my groin. And then I heard the shot. I found out later that the bear actually ran off after she clawed me, and the hunter just fired the shot to scare her and keep her moving. He didn't hit her, and she was already going when he fired. The whole thing didn't take more than two minutes, if that. I was soaking wet because I'd been walking through the wet brush without rain pants. So I was soaked to the waist, and I was lying in a wet muskeg. I rolled over on my elbows and the blood was just pouring out of my face. My eyes were shut, and I thought I was dead. I thought, "There's no way; this is non-survivable". Believe it or not, I've never had a stitch or a broken bone before. I've told my wife this over the years, and she always says, "You know that's the wrong thing to be saying. That's bad karma!" So I've never had to deal with trauma or shock before this point, but this felt pretty damn bad. We were so far away from help I just thought, "I'm not going to make this".

There are a lot of things that go through your mind, but my biggest worry was that she'd gotten into my brain cavity. When she was chewing on me I thought, "She's crushing my brain!" So I thought I was dead - I'd never see my family again. Then I heard two voices. The two hunters were walking down, and one of them had a gun without bullets. All the bullets were in the pack boxes.

But what I heard was, "Do you see the bear, David?"

"No, she's gone."

The first thing one of the hunters started to do was apologize.

"I'm sorry, Chris. I'm sorry, Chris -I couldn't get my gun."

I said, "Forget about it. It doesn't matter." And then I started to say, "Dave, this is not survivable. I'm not going to make it."

Dave handled the situation extremely well. He calmed me down immediately and told me to just lie down. He put a jacket under my head and then proceeded to examine me.

"You know, nothing looks life threatening. There's a lot of superficial wounds on your face." This might have been a lie but it sure helped me because I thought there was bloody brains oozing out of my head! You have to remember that I couldn't see. They did a tremendous job of calming me down and stabilizing me.

The immediate problem was I was shivering and thirsty - signs of shock. They put jackets over me but that didn't do much good. It was windy and still drizzling. We had no packhorse, no tents, no sleeping bags - the horses had all disappeared, and it took two hours for the guide to round them up. The hunters dragged me to dry ground and then one of them (the one who never had any bullets in his gun) did something that probably saved my life. He took all his clothes off and all my clothes off, and put all his dry clothes on me. He was just standing there naked. There was no wood to build a fire. They put all their jackets on me and then huddled around me to keep the wind off. And it worked. I stopped shivering.

Then a crazy thing happened. In all the years of guiding up on the Bonnet Plume and the Snake, I had never seen another person who wasn't a member of our party - this is total wilderness. But as I was lying there surrounded by one naked guy with his wife standing nearby, I suddenly heard a voice calling, "Do you need any help?" Four canoeists had just walked up from the Snake River. They had come from the exact direction the sow had disappeared and none of them had a gun. I couldn't believe it. I heard my hunters ask.

"Is there a doctor with you?"

"Do you have any radio equipment or an ELT?"

Then they told them that I'd been attacked by a bear, and they promptly turned around on their heels and walked right back to the Snake River. They didn't try to help or even offer to go get a sleeping bag or anything. I don't even know their names.

Eventually I heard the hunters say, "Here come the horses," and I could hear the bells. They immediately unpacked and set up the tent, got out the sleeping bags and mats. They got me in there, and I actually started to warm up.

Now we had a decision to make. It's an 18-hour ride from where I was to base camp, where we have our satellite telephone. We had no other communication equipment with us. Despite my injuries I was still in charge.

I said, "Send Stacey (the guide) and one of the hunter's wives" (who was a good horsewoman). If something happened to him and he was alone we'd be screwed. So I told them to send two people and four horses so they could trade off horses halfway through. My guide was in panic mode - he took one look at me and freaked. He didn't even know where in the hell he was; he'd never been in that part of the country before. One of the hunters had a GPS so he sat down rationally, got out the map, plotted the exact location, and wrote a note about my condition. The note said there were no life threatening injuries, but that I'd need eye surgery. They thought I'd lost an eye. So it wasn't as though they just took off; we planned it through.

Meanwhile, the other hunter and his wife were with me performing first aid. They had kits, and gave me painkillers, and then stopped the bleeding with bandages. It was very important that someone stay with me all night, and there was always someone there to talk to me, and give me a drink when I needed it. I was totally dehydrated. It was a long night. Probably every couple of hours I'd ask what time it was because I kept trying to figure out how close the guide might be to getting back to camp.

My big concern after midnight was the weather, since one of the hunters came in then and said the clouds were coming down. The fog was hanging just above the tent level, and I thought, "My God, I'm going to be lying here in this tent for a week, and I don't think I can survive that." But about 9:00 the next morning I heard the chopper. One of the hunters was a bit of a pessimist and he said, "It's coming from the wrong direction". I said, "It's them, don't worry - just get the flare".

Will Thompson, an excellent pilot had to fight weather all the way from Mayo. What normally would be a one-hour trip took two hours. He had to dodge and weave through various passes. When the chopper landed everyone was cheering, me included. The tent zipped open and believe it or not they'd brought a doctor.

She checked me all over and said, "Well, the thing you've got going for you is that you're a young man". I said, "You're so kind!" Then she put in an IV, gave me some morphine and Gravol, and put me on a stretcher and into the chopper. They didn't waste any time, because the weather could come down at any time.

I remember the last thing I said was, "We're going to send the chopper back in with some guides to bring back the horses". We also had to fly the hunters back. So there was a whole bunch of logistics that I was still dealing with in my head.

With the weather so bad the pilot decided to go to Goz Lake and use the Sat phone to call the medi-vac plane, because they won't take off until they receive phone confirmation. When we landed at Goz my head guide came over and he was pretty upset. He'd called my wife and told her what had happened, but assured her that my injuries weren't life threatening. But when she called the Mayo nursing station they told her to be prepared for the worst, which isn't exactly the right thing to say.

We landed right at the nursing station and the first thing I did was to call my wife; the nurses told me to reassure her that I wasn't going to die.

I said, "So how's it going".

She said, "That's you? - You sound so normal!" Then they transferred me to the airport to the MediVac King Air to Whitehorse. By another stroke of luck the eye specialist, who only comes up once a month, happened to be in Whitehorse. He immediately decided my tear duct was gone and I might have a detached retina on the other side and this was something that needed to be taken care of in Vancouver. Eleven thirty that night I was in Vancouver which is quite a while after the attack considering the severity of the wounds. I was very lucky that they weren't infected. One of the surgeons said, "The wounds are really dirty," and I said that it been 36 hours since the attack and I hadn't exactly been in a clean room the whole time.

They did a good job at the hospital because the first day I looked like hell. My face looked like hamburger. I had 11 hours of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery after that. They put titanium plates where my eye sockets were crushed, and replaced my torn off nose. The left eye damage turned out to be not a detached retina but rather damage to the optic nerve itself. I spent nine days in the Vancouver hospital, two more days in Whitehorse and then went home. Now eight months later, I'm ready to go hunting again.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED:

When Chris had finished his story, I asked him whether he now had second thoughts about what he should have done differently, any advice that he would pass along to other big game hunters to avoid the terrible experience he endured. He said not really, and emphasized again that, when the real thing happens, all your book learning just goes out the window and your instincts take over. If a man of Widrig's vast experience (he has been guiding for 27 of his 43 years) says that, how much truer would it be for the rest of us who spend less time in the wilderness and have less experience around bears? That should be a sobering thought. I also wondered whether he thought that when the bear caught up with him he should have dived on his stomach, put his hands over the back of his neck and played dead rather than turning to face her. Chris admitted that making such direct eye contact was probably a mistake. "She no doubt perceived it as a threat." But he said his instincts told him to try to bluff the bear. He also pointed out that had he exposed his neck and spine first, the bear might have killed him by biting there.

The year before Widrig was mauled, a young woman was killed by another grizzly in the Yukon's Kluane National Park. She and her husband were hiking along a park trail when they saw a grizzly approaching. The bear had its head down and didn't appear to have seen them, so they slipped off the trail and about 30 yards into the woods. When the bear hit their scent trail he followed them into the bush. They continued to retreat until they came to a treeless area and there decided to drop their packs. The griz sniffed the packs briefly and then kept after them. At that point they decided to lie down and play dead.

The bear made curious approaches to both the man and woman, cautiously sniffing them before tentatively pawing and nipping the woman. Her husband then tried to scare the bear off by kicking at and hitting it with a stick, but the bear turned on him and bit him and knocked him over, then returned to the woman. At that point the couple agreed that the husband should run for help. When he and the park wardens arrived back, the woman had been killed, and buried by the bear. Afterwards, the experts agreed that if the couple had kept moving away when the bear first approached, or been more aggressive, the woman might well still be alive, since the bear, a 3 year old male, was apparently just looking for food. Ironically, the couple had read Dr. Steve Herrero's book, Bear Attacks, Their Causes and Avoidance, which scientifically analyses bear attacks and bear behavior, and councils never to run from a grizzly, but to play dead instead. That is exactly what they did, and the result illustrates that no rule of conduct is ever effective in all situations.

I also asked Chris why he wasn't carrying bear deterrent pepper spray, and he said he should have been, and will in the future. He obviously had plenty of time to use it, as did the couple in Kluane, and could have fired it at close range when the bear charged in. Having pepper spray might have given him more confidence in standing his ground. However, he feels that anyone who carries pepper spray should practice with it so that employing it becomes second nature.

My reading as a wildlife biologist, and my experience as a big game hunter tells me that pepper spray is by far the best protection from bear attack, better even than a powerful rifle. Unlike a long gun, you always have it with you (in a holster on your belt) rather than leaving it behind if you are using your hands for something else, like fetching water or pitching a tent. Since it is a short range weapon there is no danger of unnecessarily killing (or wounding) a bear at long range which might prove to be no threat, as was the case in Widrig's encounter with the first sow and cub. Finally, you can use it even at very close quarters, in thick brush or even if bear has a hold of you, which isn't true of a firearm. Best of all, it does no permanent damage to the bear.

And it is effective. I talked to a forester in the McBride Valley in British Columbia who had shot a charging grizzly sow full in the face at point blank range (as Widrig probably could have). He said it literally knocked her off her feet, and she started rolling around screaming, and pawing at her eyes and mouth. Furthermore, the effect lasted for over half an hour. He knew because he had to stand around that long because her two three-year-old cubs were hanging around on the edge of the commotion and he was afraid to leave while they were around.

So, rather than an American Express Card (which won't do you much good in the northern wilderness) get a can of bear spray, and don't leave home without it.