Last summer when we went to Idaho for Beth’s grave service, on our way home we decided to stop at Bear World. This is a space with a whole bunch of, you guessed it: bears. There is a big meadow with a little road, and you can drive your car through, past the bears (who are not caged, but wander through the meadow). We also decided to go on the bear feeding tour, which allows you to throw bread to the bears from an open-topped truck.

Bears are not my favorite animal—that would be the cheetah, or almost anything in the large cat family. But they are high on my list of affections. In fact, I harbor a secret desire to come across a bear while we’re hiking. From a distance, of course, but I long to see a bear in the wild, in its natural place in the world. So the Bear World experience was a little strange to me. On the one hand: bears! Brushing against our van! Eating food that I’d thrown to them! On the other hand: we were throwing them white Wonder bread. The wildness was gone; these were bears accustomed to human interactions, their body clocks set to the passing feeding tours.

So when my niece Lyndsay called me to see if Kendell and I wanted to go tag bears, my only hesitation was a prior commitment. Once my friend Wendy and her husband helped me with that, I was ready: I was going to see a real bear.

Lyndsay’s husband works for the DNR, and part of his responsibilities is managing the bear population. (You can read more about it HERE.) Every spring, they follow the pings from the bears’ tracking collars to their dens. They do different things to check the mother bear’s health, and they also check for cubs. They take several students with them (“several,” this time, being an understatement; there were about 35 people) so they can see what animal biologists do.

I was beyond honored to be included.

We started in Price, Utah, and drove to a spot in a canyon near Nine Mile Road. Then we just started hiking, following the biologists tracking the radio signal.

(a shot of most of the group making its way up the cliffs.)

This wasn’t a hike like we usually take—meaning, no trail. It was mostly a scramble. At one point, we had to get on top of an overhanging cliff, and this was the solution:

(Side note: I think I was the only person in exercise clothes there. Everyone else hiked in jeans and there I was, in my favorite running pants.)

Once we got to the den, we stood quite a way back from the entrance, while the biologists tranquilized the mother bear. It was chilly once we stopped moving, but it was lovely to stand in the mountains and talk to Kendell and Lyndsay.

After the bear was asleep, they removed the cubs. There were two, a grey and a black. They were about a month old. I tried not to be pushy because I knew there were a lot of people wanting to hold them—but I was, I confess, not the last person to hold one. (I also wasn’t the first, though!)

You know when you have an experience that you’ve wanted for a long time, how it almost feels like it’s not you...like you’re watching it happen and not really doing it?

That’s how I felt when one of the students handed me a bear cub.

To make myself feel it instead of observe, I said out loud: “I am holding a bear cub!” And I was! I turned to look out over the valley below the den

and just held the squirming, shivering, muscular creature. I was surprised by how long and sharp its claws were,
and at the fat pads on the bottom of its feet. But I was hoping its fur would be soft, and it was. It mewled and squealed and shivered, so I tried to snuggle it close. Is it weird to say: it was a baby, and nature takes over and you just do what you do with any baby, try to keep it warm, bounce a little bit.

I held a bear cub!

Lyndsay and Kendell were standing with me, so they held it next.

Then, while we waited to hold the other one, I decided that I wasn’t going to regret anything: despite my claustrophobia, I was going to go inside the bear’s den. There was a small, triangular opening between two boulders. Once it was my turn (several of the students also wanted to see inside the den), I laid down right on my belly and army crawled into the den. It wasn’t a long crawl, really; my torso was in the cave while my legs were outside of it. It wasn’t as dark as I had expected, as there were a bunch of rocks piled at the back, with a small opening at the top like a window. It was small, but not excrutiatingly. So I only had that paralyzing rush of a small-place fear for a second.

It smelled like wild animals, but it didn’t have an overwhelmingly powerful stink. And it was mostly quiet—or I just ignored all the human sounds, and laid with my chin on my forearms, watching the sleeping bear.

I touched her, too. I thought her fur would be more coarse than the babies’, but really it was softer and fluffier. I wished her happy mothering, which is probably silly, but still: it’s tough to be a bear. Two babies to watch and feed and keep safe on a mountain.

After the den, I wanted to hold the other cub, and finally got a chance to.
(This is my favorite photo of me and the cubs, because look at that cub! He is totally smizing.)

Some of the students had started back to their cars, so it wasn’t as crowded, and I felt like I could hold him a little bit longer. This one was squirmier than his sister.

(although, this one is pretty awesome, too. Baby yawns are cute no matter the creature!)

He protested much more, and shivered less, and hardly snuggled at all. Still, I confess to crooning. I told him that if he ever came across me while I was hiking, he was not to eat me because we’re friends now.

I marveled.

I’m convinced that we, in our contemporary age, have no idea what the world is supposed to be like. We’ve stripped it of everything wild. When you hike through the mountains, sometimes you’ll spot a deer, or a mountain goat, an elk or a rare moose. I don’t think it is supposed to be like that. I think there used to be more wildlife in the world. There should be bears in the wild. And cougars. (This recent story of a cougar being stoned to death makes me furious.) There should be more wild places, and less human interaction.

The irony of which doesn’t escape me, as I had my human interaction with three bears.

Eventually, the mama bear started stirring, and as she’d probably be fairly mad once she woke, it was time to put the babies back. As I was shifting the cub I was holding for one last picture, someone bumped me and I reflexively pulled him close so I wouldn’t drop him. And he did not like that. He swiped right at me, in fact, with those sharp claws. A fast swipe that would've cut my skin open if he'd reached me. That moment was when I really felt it, that I was holding a bear. Tiny still, he was strong and fierce, a force you couldn’t do much against if he were fully grown and angry. He was alive, and real. No one was going to toss him bread from a truck. He, and his sister and mother, will figure out their life on their own.

This was a day I hope I will never, ever forget. It left me more humble about my place in the world, and more awed, and even more grateful to be alive, to be able to move around in our beautiful world.