I Remember When...

I remember when I was a young girl: about 10 or 11, I went out berry picking with my aunt Jolene, sister Katie, and cousins Melanie, Adam, and Kyle. We were at VOR and everyone was spread apart on the tundra. I picked for a good hour or so, then got bored so I went to sit in the back of the truck to wait. My aunt can spend all day on the tundra. As a kid, berry picking was fun... for about an hour. Anything longer was a chore. My aunt Jolene motivated us to fill our buckets by saying the first to fill their bucket would get a dollar or a can of soda. This worked for awhile. Other times we only liked ot follow berry picking because my grandma always packed the good snacks: snacks we didn't get on a daily basis. She always told us we were going on a picnic. "Picnic" meant berry picking and then taking a break to sit on the tundra with pilot crackers and cheese, fish strips, candy, soda, chips, and other goodies.

Anyways, back to this berry picking trip. My cousins Adam and Kyle were already sitting in the back of my gram's blue, F-150 pick-up. All three of us were talking and throwing berries at one another. The truck was parked next to a long row of bushes. We stopped talking when we heard something in the bushes. It wasn't windy out so we knew there had to be an animal nearby. My cousins and I looked in the direction where we heard the noise and to our surprise there was a big brown bear. We all freaked out and started yelling for my aunt to let her know about the bear.

My aunt and cousin Melanie came running back to the truck. When they got in, Jolene honked the horn over and over to get Katie's attention. Katie was picking near the bushes that the bear was hanging around. When we got Katie's attention, she started running back to the truck. I'm not sure if the bear noticed her or not, but as she was running to the truck she tripped and spilled her berry bucket. I can just imagine her pulse racing and her heart thumping with the bear so close to her. I wonder if she was more worried about her hard-earned, spilled berries. Anyways, we all got away unharmed. We didn't stop berry picking. Instead, my aunt took us to another one of her favorite berry-picking spots. I love that we grew up with traditional values such as subsistence and respect for others and the land.

Mouth-watering blueberries! Not the store-bought flavorless blueberries. These are the real deal!

It's not uncommon to bump into brown bears in the summer, especially when berry picking. My family and I live 4 miles on the outskirts of Unalakleet. This summer we had a mother brown bear and her two cubs visiting our backyard several times. Another couple of brown bears were spotted in the vacinity as well. I don't worry too much about them because our house is surrounded by heavy equipment and we don't leave food lying around. Also, my husband is pretty protective and has several rifles ready in case bears came too close.

Brown bear family that was spotted around our house this summer