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BEAR GUIDANCE FROM A READER OK, here's some hints. You can post how many people send you these chestnuts. How do you tell a Grizzly from a black bear? Go up and kick the bear in the butt. Run like hell and climb a tree. If the bear climbs the tree and eats you, it's a black bear. If he knocks the tree down and eats you, he's a Grizzly. Bear bells and pepper spray -- when hiking you wear a bell to let the bear know you're coming , and they'll avoid you. Carry pepper spray to fend off the bear in case you get a bear that likes bells. You should also examine scats in the area to know what kind of bears might be about. Black bear scats feature berry seeds . Grizzly scats contains bells, and smell of pepper. Bring a whole new meaning to Winnie ther *pooh*, doesn't it? Posted 8:42 PM | [Link] Ursine Newspeak I suppose this is a good time to address a long-running disagreement between the Missus and me. Being an Alaskan, she has a healthy respect/distrust/fear of bears. Being a pseudo-intellectual demi Jew from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I’ve always thought bears would giggle if you poked them in the belly with your index finger. Jessica comes from the Dirk Kempthorne school, I come from the Winnie the Pooh school. Dirk Kempthorne is the Idaho governor who decried the Clinton Administration’s proposed introduction of grizzly bears – what he called "massive, flesh-eating carnivores"-- into his state. Winnie the Pooh is a cute little fella with a vaguely scatological last name. Anyway, whenever Jessica sees Disney-style treatments of bears or ultra green documentaries about how "misunderstood" bears are, she yells "bear propaganda!" and leaves the room. I’ve always considered her a bit of a hypocrite on such things because she actually loves the creatures. Meanwhile, on this trip, my hypocrisy has been monumental. We’ve been to a half dozen spots where the possibility of being hassled by bears -- presumably unamused by tickling attempts -- has been acute. We’ve had to stop and inspect the wild shinola (Manhattanites can’t tell the difference) on more than a few occasions. And, at one spot, we even turned around because we couldn’t identify some sounds in the bushes. In short, it’s a lot easier to think bears are cute when there’s little likelihood of being eaten by one. Posted 10:12 AM | [Link] Banff! Cont’d But they certainly do take themselves seriously here. There are no garbage cans in the town, but dumpsters with missile silo security to prevent bears from getting in. Each one sports a sign saying "Keep the bears wild" accompanied by a picture of some cute grizzlies. I don’t claim to be an expert on bears, but I have a hard time believing that the bears would wander into town past the tour busses, street lights, neon signs and the like to get to a garbage cans downtown. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there is a lot of hustle and bustle downtown, which usually keeps bears at a distance. My suspicion is that there’s a certain degree of wishful-thinking and marketing by the Banff!ans. Sure, there’s a national park surrounding the town, but there are also a scores of ski slopes and the rest. Banff!ans want to believe they are frontiersmen, despite their designer clothes and designer cars and Manhattanite environmentalism. More important, they want the busloads of Japanese and German tourists to believe they are in wild country despite the fact every hotel room comes with a hot tub. Declaring that the grizzly bears might get to their Egg McMuffins is one way of doing that. Posted 10:11 AM | [Link] Banff!’s Doggie Apartheid So we just finished walking around Banff! Cosmo had to be on a leash because, technically, we are in a National Park and an unleashed dog could be "disruptive" to the wildlife. I’m sympathetic to this argument, except I’m at a loss to understand how the assortment of skate-punks, tour busses, propane dealerships, garbage trucks, sushi bars and construction sites are somehow in euphonious harmony with the natural surroundings, while my dog chasing a tennis ball in a downtown park would obliterate the ecosystem. Posted 10:09 AM | [Link] BANFF! We're in Banff! For some reason I have to say Banff! with an exclamation point. It might have to do with the fact it sounds so much like the spund-effect for the comic book character Nightcrawler. But that's probably too much information. Anyhoo. Banff is really, really beautiful (and full of itself). At least the setting is. We spent the day yesterday driving south on route 40 ("The Bighorn Route") to 16 through Jasper National Park and Banff National Park. Jasper is staggeringly beautiful and big (about the size of Connecticut). We pulled into Banff last night and are going to hang out here for a day. We've driven almost 2,000 miles already and we need a break, especially as our anniversary approaches. Hopefully this means I can post more. We're off to get coffee. Posted 6:57 AM | [Link] OKAY, OKAY [Jonah Goldberg] It now seems clear that there are people reading this thing. Apparently my bout of melancholia was the result of some bad mountain clams. While a few people have grand and arcane theories about why traffic has been down, the overwhelming consensus is that i just didn't post enough to make it worthwhile. I will try to change that. Posted 6:47 AM | [Link] Thursday, August 22, 2002 BEARING UP Wednesday, Aug 21. It’s later in the day. Cosmo is madder than H.E.-double hockey sticks as my father-in-law likes to say (it sounds better in a Slovakian accent). Despite numerous opportunities, Cosmo was not permitted to exercise his God-given right to supervise caribou activity in this region. He moped in the back seat for much of the afternoon. But he was still willing to get out of the car in Fort St. John in BC. We went to Charlie Lake, a pleasant little camping and boating spot right off the highway. The most notable thing about the park was that it was the first place in over a thousand miles where the authorities seemed more concerned about what bears might do to us rather than what we might do to bears. You see, for most of the way through Canada the only "bear warnings" at the various parks cautioned people not to feed them – "a fed bear is a dead bear" – or implored good citizens to turn in bear poachers. I can understand the anti-poacher thing. But it would be nice if they could note from time to time that the tragedy of a dead bear is lessened if his final meal was you. Anyway, at Charlie Lake, they posted nice little pictograms of grizzly bears – you can tell from the distinctive hump on their backs – which cautioned that bears are in the area. Of course, I’m just assuming they were warning us. Rather than advising that the delicate critters were in the 'hood. Posted 10:05 PM | [Link] COSMO'S GREATEST MOMENT! It's what Cosmo has been waiting for his entire life. It's what he trained, worked and studied for. All of the sacrifices have finally paid off! Cosmo the wonderdog chased caribou! On Wednesday morning, around 10:12 AM, for about 12.6 seconds, Cosmo was the ruler of big game. Or as the Congolese might call him, he was the Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu waza Banga ("the all-powerful canine who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake" - a liberal translation.). About an hour or two south of Muncho, Lake in British Columbia the beasts became plentiful along the side of the road. We stopped the bomber often to look at them. Cosmo bounced off the walls trying to see them. At one spot there was a group of three medium-sized oil-drilling-stopping grass chewers. We pulled over and Jessica got out to get a better look and Cosmo tumbled out behind her. He could not be stopped. He was tanned, rested and ready and the caribou were just asking for it! He tore off after them on gravel-covered ground, scattering the herd (Cosmo insists that it was a herd). One fled to the West. The other two bounded North, hoping the citified wolf wouldn't pursue. But he did pursue with a sense of mission normally only reserved for ham -- and ham doesn't run. Some cars showed up and for all we knew, it was against the law for Cosmo to chase the beasts. Worse, he might run into traffic. So Jessica called him back before Cosmo had a chance to round up the "massive herd." But that's all Coz needed to know that this was his true calling. He's never cried before in the car, but for the rest of the day, if he saw a moose, caribou or any other hooved beast. he wailed. Posted 6:41 AM | [Link] Wednesday, August 21, 2002 ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE [Jonah Goldberg] Tuesday, Aug 20: Well, it looks like no one is interested in reading about my trip to the North Country – if traffic stats and email are any judge. That’s cool. Though I have to admit, I’m a bit mystified about why nobody is reading my travelblogue (the "u" makes it classy). That’s not ego talking either. You see, last years travel diary was a big hit and I was equally befuddled by its popularity back then. Why this year’s trip is a "noxious bore," to quote one loyal reader, while last year’s was a hit perplexes me solely because I don’t understand why last year’s wasn’t a noxious bore too. You – and I mean "you" in the collective sense – could have saved me a lot of hassles if you’d just told me that last year’s column was the epistolary equivalent of the Old Faithful – "it both sucks and blows" in the words of Bart Simpson – and I could have avoided writing this thing altogether. Now I kind of feel like Mick Jagger singing to an undersold arena in Dayton. Most of the seats are empty and the fans who do show up spend the whole night booing the new stuff and shouting for the classics like "Paint it Black" and "Sympathy for the Devil." It feels like all I need to do is phone in a few French jokes and maybe talk about how Alec Baldwin is too dumb to be a spell-checker at an M&M factory and I’d be free and clear. Alas, I can’t phone in any French jokes because, once again, I’m staying someplace without a phone or a TV or a newspaper or huge entertainment center with reclining chair and kegerator. But that’s ok. We stumbled on this inn in Muncho Lake in British Columbia and it’s pretty cool; sort of like a Swiss colony in the Canadian Rockies. The best thing about it though is that it feels like we’re somewhere. For the last two and a half days Jessica and I have been driving through a place that makes the middle of nowhere look like the set of the Tonight Show. I’ve now seen 8 kazillion trees and, unlike snowflakes and the Sierra Club’s insistence notwithstanding, many of them do look alike. When we checked into the inn my wife asked if they had TVs or phones in the rooms, and the surly girl behind the counter responded, "Nope. Welcome to the North." Jessica was sorely tempted to tell her, "listen sugar, I was born and raised 600 miles to the North of here, so don’t give me any of that ‘I’m purer-than-thou-crap." But, alas, we have to be nice to hotel people because we’re so desperate to find places that accept dogs. I’d go on about that but apparently you people crave "substance." Posted 11:41 PM | [Link] A CANADIAN JOKE (FROM A READER) A man walked into the produce section of his local supermarket and asked to buy half a head of lettuce. The boy working in that department told him that they only sold whole heads of lettuce. The man was insistent that the boy ask his manager about the matter. Walking into the back room, the boy said to his manager, "Some a**hole wants to buy a half a head of lettuce." As he finished his sentence, he turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, "and this gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half." The manager approved the deal and the man went on his way. Later the manager found the boy and said "I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their feet here. Where are you from, son?" "Canada, sir," the boy replied. "Well, why did you leave Canada?" the manager asked. The boy said, "Sir, there's nothing but whores and hockey players up there." "Really!" said the manager. "My wife is from Canada!" The boy replied, "No way? Who did she play for?" Posted 8:43 PM | [Link] Monday, August 19, 2002 WE MADE IT Dawson City is weird. It’s an old Gold Mining Town. Most of the tourists seem like twenty-something extras from a Mountain Dew commercial, with their bandanas on their heads and well-worn fleece pullovers. Maybe the oldsters just went to bed early. We’re still as North as Fairbanks more or less, but a few hundred miles East. So the sun still shines in the wee hours of the morning. It’s not totally dark until two or three. We’re staying in a kennel for three called the Bonanza Gold Hotel and RV Park. Or is it Gold Bonanza? Either way, our room is basically an outsized kennel. Though we’re grateful for any room at all, let alone a clean one like this. It also appears to be the only place in town that accepts dogs. Actually, It’s not in town so much as right outside of it. Dawson City itself is booked solid. Which is the weird thing. I can’t quite figure out why that would be. The lady at the front desk here says this is the last night of the "high season" and if we stay another night we’ll get a big discount. This isn’t quite the same thing as saying to a convict "you’ve served your full sentence but if you stay for another year you can get an extra helping of apple brown betty at lunch" but the principle is the same. The town itself is a Potemkin village of faux saloons and boarding houses. It’s all fake, but not Epcot Center fake. It’s got a nice mix of very old ramshackle and very modern. The roads are made of real dirt and there are poor, probably alcoholic, natives wandering around. Some of the saloons provide internet access, but they aren’t ADA compliant. We had dinner at an old style saloon, Klondike Kate’s something or other, and we had very good spring rolls, wonton soup and pan Asian noodles. It kind of reminds me of when Captain Picard goes home to France in Start Trek (fortunately, in the future, most Frenchmen speak in a British-accented English which hopefully means at some point the Brits finally got the job done). Everything is old, but you know there’s modern stuff behind the scenes when needed. It’s clearly a tourist hub for campers, hikers and hunters. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll see agents Mulder and Scully walking down the street any moment. Anyway, we’re going to hit the road soon. We’re heading to Whitehorse, the provincial capital. After that, nobody knows but I hope that the internet access will be easier, though I doubt I’ll find it any saloons. Posted 9:47 AM | [Link] DAWSON CITY BOUND Jessica and I picked up the blue bomber, a 1991 two-door Fleetwood Cadillac formerly owned by Jessica’s mom. It has over 100,000 miles on it, but we’re betting it’s good for another 100K or so. Admittedly, it’s about 30 years early for my first caddy. But I’ve got to say, the power steering on this thing is amazing. If you’re not careful, you can bank a hard right or left just by sneezing. It’s not the first car you think of for driving through Alaska into the Yukon Territory of Canada. But that’s just because most people can’t imagine driving through the wilderness in such style. We’re heading to Dawson City, about 60 miles over the Canadian border. Our first stop for gas was in Tok, Alaska (the blue bomber likes gas; I think it’s the November picture on the Saudi "Cars We Like" Wall Calendar). Tok was founded as a worker camp in 1942 during the construction of the Alaska Highway. Some say Tok is short for Tokyo Camp -- the original name crews gave the area before they decided to abbreviate it in a bout of WWII era patriotism. Others say the town was named after a mascot puppy of an all-negro work crew "breaking trail" for the highway. Most people, I think it’s fair to say, say "who the hell cares." But not everybody – because there’s a tell-all history of the town called "Tok: The Real Story." This mention no doubt constitutes a media blitz for book. Tok is an ugly, ugly town. The only nice building I spotted was the Tok DMV which looks like a Swiss bath house. Jessica says this is typical in many Alaskan small towns. The only nice buildings are the ones funded by the state or the Feds. "It’s like Saudi-built mosques in Kurdistan," she says. Posted 9:45 AM | [Link] FAIRWELL FAIRBANKS We had a wonderful time, Cosmo included. Jessica’s family threw a huge party for us on Friday night since we couldn’t make it up here before the wedding. Everything was great, except some dreadful weather. Mr. Gavora is the Attila the Hun of the barbecue pit (he did all the barbecuing at our wedding too). We had filet, fresh Alaskan salmon and deep fried (yes, deep fried) turkey. Here’s the whole family in front of the of the grill Mr. Gavora and his brother built themselves. I’m the puffy guy in the yellow slicker. That woman I’ve got my hands on is the fair-yet-soaked-to-the-bone Jessica. Mr. Gavora is seated in the middle and Mrs. Gavora is next to him. Cosmo is the white-ish dog on the bottom left next to Middie (short for Midnight a massive black lab and elderstatesdog of the Fairbanks area. The names of everyone else are being withheld to protect the innocent. Posted 9:43 AM | [Link] |
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