Books, books, cool books, Ed abbey, bears, Bill Gates & more

 "You have some cool books," said  Susan last night as I was telling her about Ed Abbey, and Sean Prentiss' book "Finding Abbey" about trying to find Abbey's hidden grave in the Arizona desert. I'd written about it earlier,  "Characters, not cookie-cutters" , and today I finished it, the first book of this year.
I won't tell you if he found the grave or not...you'll have to read the book.
But then I started looking at my bookshelves, reawakening my interest in Abbey's friends and authors, including two who have written about my totem Grizz, David Peterson, "The Ghost Grizzlies," and Doug Peacock, "The Essential Grizzly," both of whom Prentiss interviewed for his book.

There they are in my grizzly section, waiting to be reread, next to some of my Abbey books.

Right underneath it is my New Mexico section, many first editions--more cool books.
Speaking of re-reading, I now must go and find a new copy of his "Desert Solitaire" and reread. 

1968 1st edition cover

Then this morning, I find a New York Times article on Bill Gates reading about 50 books a year, and the ones he recommends on his blog, Gatesnotes. Oh, and by the way, he reads books on paper, not digitally. I knew I liked the guy.
Here's to cool books.

The Russian bear awakens from hibernation

The bear has awakened from hibernation and is hungry.

Grizz is my totem, ursa horriblis, the dominant carnivore in the northern hemisphere. I think it is no accident that the bear is the symbol of Russia.

Recent actions by Russia, in the Ukraine, and now in Syria, and who knows where else, make us Americans uncomfortable. We may be the world's only "superpower," but we don't like, and fear, competition. 

I grew up in the Cold War, afraid of Russian ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) coming over the north pole. We even had evacuation plans, extra food ready to load,  and took part in exercises from Albuquerque...figuring we had 45 minutes before being hit to reach the Sandia Mountains. In high school speech class, my memorized oration was about "detente" and the fear of nuclear war. We feared the bear.

We feared the bear

I'm wondering why more people from Russia have clicked on this blog in the past few days than those from other countries, including America. 

Bears are confident, territorial, proud, and survivors. A mere eagle is not a  match, really more of a scavenger. What have we been able to do in the face of Russian "aggression" in Ukraine and Syria? Nothing, and that has nothing to do with politics. Short of war, sending American soldiers to die, we're powerless.

Any country that can lose 10 million people in a war, and still be a world power, has to be reckoned with, or at least respected. The crack "Red Army" defeated Hitler, and fell into decay. No longer. Grizz's claws are long. You can't outrun it. 

Americans forgot that when we "won" the Cold War. But the bear has only been hibernating.

Bearing witness in Sitka, and Alaska

Brother and sister playing tough.
Sister won.

It couldn't have been coincidence that we were booked into the "Bear room" at An Otter's Cove Bed and Breakfast in Sitka, Alaska. We walked in and saw photos and art of brown bears on every wall. What we'd really come to see was Sitka, and highest on my list was the Fortress of the Bear which cares for orphaned bear cubs, especially Brown bears, essentially large grizzlies.
Those who know me, and my son Travis, know we revere Grizz. He may be our totem. I've collected books and read about them, bur other than one siting at Glacier National Park and in zoos, never come very close to them. We did come across a fresh footprint in Glazier those years ago, and promptly changed course. We're not afraid of bears. We respect and honor, and if you're jogging or hiking or camping in bear country, you're the intruder.

But I was unprepared for the adventure of spending an hour watching and listening to the permanent residents of the Fortress of the Bear, watching them from a safe height of 17 feet, listening to the dedicated zoologist tell us about them. You can find out more at the website: http://www.fortressofthebear.org/

Most cubs are eventually sent to zoos, but this is one of five permanent residents, about four years old.

We learned that Baranof Island, where Sitka is located (the former capital of Russian Alaska), covers about 1,600 square miles, and there are about 1,600 bears on it  in the wild. Admiralty Island, which we went past on the ferry trip to Sitka from Juneau, has more bears than any place int he world, and it's a huge wildlife refuge.

This is one of two three year old cubs, sleeping late.

It's located at the end of the paved road south out of Sitka.

High on the mountain side, taken from the boat.

We did see this black bear on our glacier trip. Blacks and Brown don't get along or occupy the same territory. Blacks are herbivorous. Browns eat anything, including black bears.

I did get closer to two brown bears, but they were stuffed. Above at the Sitka airport, of one killed while eating the elk the antlers belonged to, the other at the Mount Roberts tram at Juneau. The only grizzlies in the lower 48 are in Yellowstone and Glacier and perhaps remote areas of the north Cascades and Idaho. And there are rumors of a few, "Ghost Grizzlies" in the San Juan mountains of Southwest Colorado. All the others have been killed off. These are smaller than the Alaskan Browns because they have more wilderness and richer diets (Salmon), but they're genetically the same. There is some disagreement on that, and on how Kodiak bears are different, but you can do your own research for that.
Here is some of the art that was in our room at An Otters Cove Bed and Breakfast (the other two rooms were decorated with eagle and whale art). http://www.ottercovebandb.com/
These are cropped and sorry about the reflections.
You can tell I had a bear of a time in Alaska.

Finally, Alaska lives on tourism, and judging from just a few of the carved pieces of art in the Russian American Company in Sitka, lots of people like the bears too. No, I didn't buy one, but should have.
http://www.russianamericancompany.com/

The forest primeval, and cabin

Cabins speak to me, my imagination, my fantasies, and more. When I saw this at Angoon, the Tiglit village that is the only occupied village on remote Admiralty Island in Alaska, home to more  brown, grizzly, bears than anyplace in the world, I snapped the shot from the ferry. I discovered this place has only 300 residents, is visited by the Alaska Maritime ferry only once a day, and less than that during the winter. I think these are my kind of people, and it demanded a painting. This is the first attempt. The second is underway. I immediately thought of Longfellow's Poem Evangeline, that began, "This is the forest primeval...."This is what is now New England looked like before we destroyed it.

Primeval Alaska, 9 by 12 140 pound d'Arches paper, watercolor