[water splashing] - [George] The first thing that strikes you as the bear first enters your visual field is the awesome size of the animal.

[serene music] - [Hiker] Make a lot of noise, clap your hands.

- [Jeff] The bear was dragging me off the trail and pulling me by my elbows with his mouth.

- [Stan] Actually, I think they're much overrated as being such a vicious animal.

[serene music] - [Announcer] Nature is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

[serene music] - For many people, the grizzly is the strongest symbol of what's wild and free, where the grizzly lives so does the wilderness.

A century ago, grizzlies roamed over a large part of the United States, from the coast of California, across the Great Plains to the forests of the Eastern mountains.

But today in the lower 48, its range is confined to the high plateau of Yellowstone and the deep mountains of Glacier National Park.

Only in Alaska does the grizzly still rule.

Only Alaska has enough wild space where bears can live as they always have, roaming over huge areas, fishing for salmon, stalking moose, and raising rambunctious cubs.

And it's because of the bears that people come to grizzly country to experience perhaps just once the heart of our living wilderness.

[birds chirping] [gentle music] Alaska, vast, open, wild, where people come to encounter a powerful predator on its own terms.

[dramatic music] During the caribou rut in autumn the bears demonstrate their cunning and power.

They watch the caribou from a distance.

They can't risk attacking such large well-armed animals in a tight herd.

As the bears stand for a better look, the caribou move away nervously and there are other more agile predators stalking the herd.

Wolves are not numerous, but they're better equipped to attack caribou than the lumbering bears.

[caribou snorting] They watch for the older bulls exhausted by the stress of continual combat.

The bears watch too.

They know that a weary bull already attacked by wolves is vulnerable.

When a bear comes on the scene the wolves retreat leaving the wounded caribou to its fate.

[animals growling] [wind howling] The bear's year starts in April when the snow begins to retreat up the mountains.

Mothers and cubs and lone males too crawl drowsy from the dens where they've spent the winter.

After the long winter fast, the bears regain their appetite slowly.

Roots and dried grass are all that's available from the mountainside.

Full grown males sometimes look on cubs as prey, so this mother ushers her yearlings down the mountain quickly.

[wind howling] Spring comes slowly to these latitudes.

[water gushing] All over Alaska, the bears are emerging into the light.

Born in the winter den, these cubs are already a few months old.

They depend on their mother for milk.

To nurse them she needs to restore her own body weight and is alert for signs of a ground squirrel, an important addition to her diet.

With her powerful fore paws she can dig deep into the squirrels burrow system.

While the mother digs, her cubs stay close to her for food and safety.

Here in Denali National Park their only real enemy is another bear.

A male will kill cubs to bring their mother into estrus so that he can sire his own offspring, but she will defend them fiercely, even if it means her death.

The cubs will stay with their mother until they're more than two years old.

Under her watchful eye, they will learn the great variety of plants they need to eat.

[bears growling] From time-to-time she teaches them a little discipline.

At four months, the cubs are on a mixed diet of milk and solids.

They won't be fully weaned for another year or more.

By then, they must know how to hunt, fish and forage on their own.

There are more than 30,000 grizzly bears in Alaska and fewer than a thousand in the rest of the United States.

This makes Alaska's Denali National Park just 100 miles north of Anchorage a favorite destination for wildlife enthusiasts.

- Denali Park.

Denali.

- [Narrator] After Yellowstone, Denali is the second most visited national park in the US and all because of the bears.

- You folks are a group of backpackers.

This is a bear-resistant food container that we require people to carry their food in.

Roughly half the back country zones in the park require the use of the bear-resistant container.

Hope the weather stays with you and good luck, have a great trip out there.

Take care.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] Most of the visitors to Denali are content to ride along the park roads, but for others sitting in a bus isn't enough, on foot they set out to encounter a creature more powerful than themselves and to awaken senses dulled by urban living.

Out among the bears, the air is charged with danger and beauty.

[serene music] For people and bears alike, the spring in Alaska is a glorious time of year.

The earth comes alive in the growing warmth of the sun.

The grizzlies go about the daily business of being bears and the constant search for food.

Among the other animals of the park, ground squirrels are especially important to the bears.

They're a regular source of fresh meat.

The ground squirrels keep a constant lookout for all predators.

Wolves and golden eagles also hunt them.

[squirrels barking] Dall sheep roam in the park, but they're too agile to fall prey to bears.

A grizzly can charge at well over 30 miles an hour, but that's not fast enough to catch dall sheep.

In the spring, the lambs play hard to develop their life-saving agility.

[lambs baaing] The moose is the largest herbivore in the park.

They too produce their young in the spring to take advantage of the flush of new growth.

Unlike the sprightly lambs, moose calves are awkward and clumsy.

They wander away from their mother exploring the new vegetation, unaware of danger.

A few bears have learned to patrol the thickets in early spring looking for moose calves.

[dramatic music] When a bear picks up their scent, the calves faith is sealed, their mother is too far away to defend them.

[leaves rustling] A pair of moose calves will provide for a couple of days.

After her first meal the mother will cover up the carcasses and doze nearby until she's hungry again.

In some years, bears can take most of the season's calves.

Instinct draws the mother moose back to look for her young, but she's too late.

[birds chirping] [moose grunting] After covering the carcasses, the mother bear well fed and content settles back to suckle her cubs.

A bear kill is a very dangerous place for outsiders, even for other bears.

People who disturb the hidden food store are likely to be attacked.

The park staff tries to make sure that no one accidentally wanders into a bear's larder.

Tour buses ply the roads in a steady procession.

One of the bus drivers is Jeff Brown, who has an unusual background for someone who spends his time taking people to see bears.

In 1986, he and his companion were severely mauled by a grizzly in Montana's Glacier National Park.

- I just remember at that point being very close to a pretty large animal.

I think for a while we were face-to-face and for some reason it was not biting my head, but I can remember it had awful breath.

At that point, the bear was dragging me off the trail and pulling me by my elbows with his mouth, also pulling with front paws and just sort of, I had a lot of raking wounds on my legs where I was being pulled that way.

I mean, all of a sudden something would just clamp onto my shoulder and it felt like a big dog or something just wanted to get away from it.

And I can remember the growling and all those noises right near my head and feeling like, ugh, get away.

[indistinct chatter] - [Narrator] Jeff walked almost a mile to get help.

He and his friend were hospitalized for a month.

After five operations and a thousand stitches, Jeff's body healed well.

His mental state took longer to recover.

- It took a little while to get used to hiking around the hills up here.

And initially I spent a lot of time studying the willows looking for bears.

And I've overcome that and now I hike out here quite a bit.

I go out in the park with groups and I'm cautious, but I'm not unduly afraid if I can hear it.

- [Narrator] Denali is not the only park in Alaska where people can get close to bears.

Every summer thousands fly into Katmai National Park when the salmon are running.

- Welcome to Katmai.

What we have here is kind of a unique situation 'cause you're right amongst a lot of bears.

And what we try to do is give you a little bit of a beach speech so you know what to do when you do encounter a bear and how to not get a bad encounter, okay?

There are two kinds of encounters you can have here, either surprise or food-related.

We try to avoid both of those kinds.

Okay?

Surprise.

All that means is when you're walking down a trail or walking anywhere around here make a lot of noise, do a lot of talking, clap your hands.

They say don't whistle, okay.

That's 'cause you start sounding like a bird, a lot of people whistle a little bit too good and then the bears aren't forewarned.

So make a lot of noise.

Clap your hands, say, "Hey, bear, hey, bear," when you go around a corner.

- [Hiker] Hey, bear.

[hands clapping] - [Hiker] Hey, bear.

- [Narrator] When there are bears around people tend to do what they're told.

In summer, the bears can catch more salmon than they can eat.

There are plenty of fish for them all, no matter how deaf or clumsy they're fishing methods.

Only 20 yards away, the bears have an appreciative audience.

- [Spectator] That instinct.

- [Narrator] The mothers divide their time between feasting and keeping an eye on their young.

When bears gather in one place, a dominance hierarchy develops.

A senior male scarred from a hundred fights should not be approached by a cub or anyone else.

[indistinct chatter] For the spectators, some of whom have traveled thousands of miles to be here, Brooks Falls ranks as one of the world's greatest wildlife spectacles.

But another reason for coming to Katmai National Park puts the people right in the river with the bears.

[fishing rod whirring] Brooks Camp and the park must be the easiest place in the world to catch a big salmon.

- [Fisherman] What you got there?

- What?

- Where'd he go?

[all speaking indistinctly] Alligator.

Something like that.

- [Narrator] Most of the fishermen use hooks without barbs so they can release the fish unhurt.

They're allowed to take only one a day.

Since the salmon are caught so easily, purists might argue that it's not very sporting, but there's an added element of excitement, the bears.

They can take as many fishes they'd like and they have the right of way at all times.

Fishermen are briefed carefully like the bear watchers.

They are to move slowly away from a bear, if possible taking their fish with them.

The bears must not learn that when they see people fishing it means a free meal.

As for the bears, they have their own imperatives.

A mother leads her cubs away from a prowling male.

These movements bring the bears close to the fishermen and lead to a few tense moments.

So far, there have been no serious incidents at Brooks, although maintaining this record depends on the coolness of the individual fishermen and how well they remember their instructions.

Walking slowly in these circumstances can take almost superhuman control, but if you do run, the bear is very likely to chase you.

Tom Phelps recalls a close encounter he had while our filmmakers were there.

- I was fishing coming downstream and a young male passed me on the right and so I dismissed him as a problem, continued fishing and I spotted a sow downstream from me with three pubs.

And then she did a very unusual thing.

She started running upstream, leaving her cubs behind.

And so I thought, well, she wouldn't normally do that so another bear must still be in the area.

And he was over there in that center part on the right-hand side of the stream where I was gonna climb out to avoid the sow.

So I walked back up along the shore till I could see what actually was happening.

And sure enough, the male stuck his head out of the bushes.

So I left my rod and walked slowly up stream, across the stream to avoid both bears.

As soon as the two bears left the area then I just went ahead and went back down there, went fishing again.

The all clear was sounded.

- [Narrator] At McNeil River, a state wildlife sanctuary, the salmon run attracts the biggest concentration of grizzlies in the world.

[seagulls cawing] They share the abundance of fish with thousands of gulls because the McNeil estuary is closer to the sea than Brooks Falls.

On most state land hunting is permitted, but at McNeil the bears are protected.

[seagulls cawing] There's almost a family atmosphere among the assembled bears.

Grizzlies are never truly sociable, but here even more than at Brooks Falls, they tolerate each other's presence for the sake of the feast.

The youngsters large and small spar and wrestle with their brothers and sisters, but fights between adults are uncommon.

McNeil River offers a special opportunity for close encounters with bears.

Small parties of photographers are taken to the riverbank to get as close as anyone can to one of North America's largest and fiercest predators.

[indistinct chatter] - [Spectator] Where's the other bear?

- [Spectator] Over there.

- [Spectator] Yeah, so he's laying down so I'm looking for him.

- [Spectator] Well, I can't see him.

- [Narrator] Even the biggest and supposedly grumpiest old males passed by their riveted audience peacefully.

- [Spectator] Oh, there she's moving.

The one on top.

[indistinct chatter] [seagulls cawing] - [Narrator] The female salmon laden with eggs are a special delicacy.

Another mother brings her two cubs to the feast.

Their mothers are suspicious even of each other.

Though the resident mother may have been leaving already, she does so with what an grizzly bear passes for a gentle warning.

[bears growling] People's feelings about bears make an awkward jump from sentimental affection for the cubs to horror at what they grow into.

But after 17 years of trouble-free association between bears and people, the McNeil River experiment has shown that fear and horror are misplaced.

More appropriate is respect, perhaps tinged with awe.

Hunters have been known to leave this place never to kill another bear.

Such a change in public attitudes may be the grizzlies only hope of long-term survival.

This is why the safety record of places like Denali is so important for the future of bears.

One fatality would set the cause back years.

Randy and Allison Yates returned from the wilderness after an encounter, which changed their view of bears.

- On the way up the Alaskan Marine Highway and everything, every magazine shop you stop in like on the boats and everything, they're always these portrayals of bears, you know, with their teeth showing and they're all, you know, standing on their hind feet and ready to attack anything in the area.

And you go into the airport, we stopped in the airport in Juneau and they have a big stuffed bear there standing up with his teeth showing and everything.

And last night we were talking with the guy who lives in the cabin that we ended up camping outside of.

And he was telling us that a bear's mouth won't even actually do that, that only a taxidermist can make a bear's mouth show its teeth like that.

Last night when the bear came around the corner she just looked over through the valley and didn't really even acknowledge that we were in the area.

And the two cubs were just playing off separately at first.

And then when they came together, they just played and she rolled around there and back and let the one nurse and then just followed them into the bush.

But there was no aggressive charge or anything like that, or any of the things that you would normally think a bear would do.

We didn't really see any of that.

- As we did hike up the hill, because I was so ready to get out of the area I really didn't take a lot of notice, but what I did see was not a bear that was in any way really interested in us, but really the bear is pretty peaceful where it was.

- [Narrator] Outside the park, people pursue bears for an older reason.

Bear skins are still a prize trophy for hunters.

[gun firing] - Ah, that's great, George.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, a lot of fiddle around for that.

We did it.

That's good.

- Nice.

- Yeah, that looks good.

See a little bit, little rough here.

Hey, some of the guard here, John, that's likely stuff- - Probably in the den.

- Yep, den [indistinct].

See?

Good.

See?

- [Narrator] Ever since Alaska became a state in 1959, all bears shot legally for sport have been tagged and their particulars recorded, including the name of the hunter.

Tagging helps keep track of hunting's effect on bears.

- Saw as he was coming across the stream.

Something to behold.

The first thing that strikes you is the bear first enters your visual field is the awesome size of the animal.

Very beautiful, majestic.

And as it strolled across the meadow I just had to watch it for a few seconds before we thought about actually taking the animal.

It's a personal question as to whether one really feels like he would be a hunter or not.

One that you have to search your own soul and find, I think it primarily has to do with the experience of the hunt and with the challenge of the hunt itself.

- [Narrator] But not everyone responds to that challenge.

Stan Price has lived among grizzlies on Admiralty Island for most of his long life.

He knows them as neighbors, if not exactly as friends.

Provided he treats them with respect and lets them go their own way, they returned the compliment.

- Actually, I think they're much overrated as being such a vicious animal.

I can't remember.

I can't see that we've had any on Admiralty Island that has been attacked by the brown bears and killed.

- [Narrator] Stan Price has walked among the bears unscathed for most of this century.

He has a philosophical view of hunting.

He sees the hunters come and go and is amused at the awe in which they seem to hold his neighbors.

- You can imagine the disposition man has in the bear.

He is afraid of them.

And when he gets the bear on the side of that gun there, he's shaking.

[serene music] - [Narrator] As summer turns to fall, the bears begin to feed more urgently, harvesting berries to build up their fat reserves for winter.

It's uncomfortable in the warm sunshine to be carrying so much fat, but unless they can increase their body weight by about a quarter, the bears will be hard pressed to survive the winter.

So they keep on eating.

[serene music] Both mother and cubs show the results as their figures become more rounded and portly.

There are still ground squirrels to be found by an enthusiastic digger.

People who actually live and work among the bears have different attitudes from the visitors and rangers in the national park.

Bruce Burnell is a gold miner whose claim is in an enclave within the park boundary.

When two bears started invading his house to raid the refrigerator, he and his partner needed to break them of the habit.

- Dan had fired his 3030 over the head of these two bears that showed up, they came back for second helpings.

And they just stood there.

They didn't run off, and the gun jammed when he tried to load another one in.

And so he went back in the cabin got his '44 and I was coming up with mine.

And we had to shoot one of the bears.

The other one ran off.

And it was just the way it goes.

It's sort of unfortunate, but once bears start eating your food, they know your cabin, they know the area, they're gonna come back.

- [Narrator] Living in grizzly country with small children requires extra caution.

Not far away is the cabin of Rory Hamel and her daughter Rena.

When a bear visited them, they called the park rangers.

- There was a bear right there.

- Yeah, we heard a noise and it just was like a... [imitates thudding noise] you know.

- There was the bear.

- What was he doing?

- In the pool.

- This is kind of like where he got in there and chewed it all up.

And we were inside kind of picking- - And was chewing on it and he ate some of it.

- You know, when I was peeking out, I noticed that he had a collar on.

So I knew we were dealing with a problem bear to some extent, but we figured he was maybe two and a half, three year.

- [Rena] That's almost how old I am.

- [Rory] That's right.

Almost how old you are.

- [Rena] He's just three right now.

[animals calling] [dog barking] - Bears are serious.

They're not cute and cuddly.

They might look so from a distance, but they have big claws and big appetites and you just, they're the top of the food chain.

They have no respect for anything but a bigger bear.

On any given day, you could be hamburger to them.

It doesn't happen real often, but every year in this state someone's mauled, someone's killed.

And like I say, it's survival and I'm not gonna be one of those who gets mauled or killed.

- [Narrator] At Kantishna, the small gold mining settlement within the park, there's a standard procedure for driving the bears away.

The park authorities want to be called in if there's any sign of trouble in the hope that things won't reach the stage where the bear has to be killed.

First, they use a lightweight cartridge that's like a plastic bullet.

[gun firing] Sometimes the bang is enough to drive the bear away, but this one is reluctant to leave such an interesting place.

So the rangers try again.

- I lost the bear.

Oh, I'm in the wrong field.

[gun firing] - [Narrator] A direct hit should have done the trick, but this bear is more stubborn than most.

Park biologists are called in to move him away.

They dart the bearer with a tranquilizer, fit it with a collar and call the helicopter.

[indistinct chatter] [truck engine starts] The helicopter will carry the offender to a distant part of the park in the hope that it will settle there and not return.

Unfortunately, a bear almost always returns to its home range.

It may remember the discomfort of this episode, however and not invade the cabins again.

[helicopter whirring] [moose bellowing] It's autumn and the moose are running.

It's the one time when the bulls massive antlers come into play.

[moose bellowing] A big bull guards his harem against all potential intruders.

Some of the challenges are too small to be more than a trivial nuisance.

They can be driven away with a gesture, others present more of a challenge.

[moose bellowing] [serene music] Predation by bears in spring can remove most of the year's calves keeping the moose population steady.

The adults are safe from bears.

Eventually though the stresses of old age and all that fighting will take their toll, then the bears have a windfall.

[serene music] By October, winter glistens on the slopes of Mount McKinley.

The time is coming rapidly when there will be no more food for the bears and they will have to retire for the winter.

They don't completely hibernate.

Their metabolism stays relatively high, that's why they need such a store of fat.

The spring cubs are well grown now.

They've learned a lot in their season in the park by exploring for themselves and by watching their mother as she guided them through territory she knows so well.

Eventually, the young male will wander away to find a place of his own.

The female will probably stay within her mother's territory.

They will den together this winter and spend one more summer as a family.

She'll continue to defend them too against the few threats the park has to offer.

Occasionally, wolves have been known to kill bear cubs.

[bears growling] In this beautiful wild place, grizzlies have nothing to fear from people.

This is the bear's territory and a human invader must enter on the bear's terms.

Grizzlies are not cuddly teddy bears, but neither are they the blood-soaked killers of popular imagination.

The first snow is dusting the bear's fur and the last of the berries are becoming harder to find.

The time has come to take shelter from the Alaskan winter.

[gentle music] Denali National Park is closed during the winter leaving the moose and caribou to their own devices.

They can find forage under the snow until the weather becomes too fierce.

Then they will move into the shelter of wooded gullies where moss and lichen will sustain them.

The few sporadic tussles between the males gradually diminish and the herd settles into cooperative winter feeding.

[gentle music] On secluded mountainsides all over Alaska, the grizzly bears are returning to their dens, the males alone, the mothers with their cubs.

[gentle music] Sometimes the bears repair and reuse old dens, sometimes they dig new ones.

[gentle music] American Naturalist Earl Fleming wrote, "It would be fitting, "I think if among the last manmade tracks on earth "would be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear."

In Alaska, as attitudes continue to change it is more likely that this will be true.

Even in grizzly country, people and bears can live together.

[gentle music] [birds cawing] - [Announcer] Nature is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

[dramatic music]