More Bears? Yes Please

Bears, Boats, Film and Other Rambles

Oct 23, 2025

I haven’t been out in the woods much because of a bunch of other life stuff that built up and had to be taken care of, some planned, some not. It’s easy to blow stuff off, like vehicle maintenance, until the end of summer when you live in Alaska. Anyway, I got caught up on a bunch of things, and our foreign exchange student headed home last night, so there will be some of what I like to call solo-slow-photo-mode hiking in my near future.

Solo-slow-photo-mode: aka, reason why I’m the worst hiking partner you could ask for, hence the solo part. Even dogs get annoyed and impatient with me. I swear I’ve seen Koda roll his eyes at me when I start setting up my tripod.

New Bears

I went for a short hike one evening about two weeks ago and found one of our local browns had three cubs this year. It’s always a treat to see cubs and know that they will continue to be a presence in this valley, in this park, in my backyard.

The sow and her cubs stayed in the brush as they moved through the area, and I was unable to get any photos of them together or any of them out in the clear.

A female brown bear in Alaska. — Mom taking a quick look around.

I wonder if the bears ever get pissed off at the beavers for making it harder to fish for salmon…

Brown bear cub in Alaska. — One of three first-year cubs also having a look around

On occasion, people will ask me how Koda behaves around moose and bears. He always sits quietly next to me, staring intently. He only talks smack to moose and bears when there’s a window between him and them.

We met Screech again on the way back to the car.

Rambles

I’ve made photo books and so-called ‘zines’ before, mostly for myself. I’m trying something a little bit more ambitious now, something more in line with my current tendency towards all things analog. I’m shooting for 100 pages +/- 20. Here’s a sneak peek at Vol. 1.

Homer

The kids and I went on a road trip this summer and ended up in Homer. To make up for intentionally staying at campgrounds with no cell signal, I let them have some screen time in our travel trailer while I went for a walk around town with my camera.

A mermaid, but I couldn’t find a good angle to show that part.

The door to the Salty Dog Saloon. — I’m a lifelong Alaskan. Yet I’ve never owned a pair of Xtratuf boots, nor have I ever stepped through this door.

Film Photos

I’ve been shooting and developing film photographs for about a year now, and I can’t say I’m really thrilled with my results. So I sent a few rolls off to a lab (The Darkroom) to see how they do. I like the results much better, and I’ll probably send all my future rolls of film to them. Here are a few examples of what I got back.

Mamiya 645, medium format, Kodak Portra 400.