Bear mauls woman in Gates of the Arctic National Park
Originally published Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 4:51 p.m.
Updated Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 5:53 p.m.
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — A woman on a guided hike in the Brooks Range was mauled by a bear at her group’s campsite in the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve on Thursday morning.
The woman, whose identity was not being released until she received medical attention and family members were notified, suffered “significant but not life-threatening” injuries, according to park officials. Other members in the group used a satellite phone to call for help.
The woman was flown to Coldfoot and examined by medics, who deemed her injuries serious enough to airlift her to a hospital for treatment, park superintendent Greg Dudgeon said. He wasn’t sure if she was being treated in Fairbanks or Anchorage.
The woman was part of a group being led by a company from Maine called Her Wild Song, which specializes in spiritual wilderness journeys for women, according to the company’s Web site. They were on the final day of a week-long trip.
The attack occurred about 6:30 a.m. at a campsite in the Okokmilaga River drainage west of Anaktuvuk Pass, about 250 miles north of Fairbanks.
Based on interviews with other members of the party by park rangers and an Alaska State Trooper in Coldfoot, the bear broke into the group’s food tent and destroyed at least one water jug before moving to the woman’s tent and attacking her.
Other women in the group heard the incident in progress and chased the bear off with a mix of bear spray and noise.
Park managers assumed the bear was a grizzly but that was not confirmed.
Park officials closed the area of the attack to overnight camping because they weren’t sure of the details behind the attack.
“We want to talk to them and see what the circumstances were but as a precaution we made a temporary closure to overnight camping,” National Park Service spokesman John Quinley said. “We want to make sure that the bear didn’t get into food and it wasn’t a bear that was stalking them or a problem bear.”
The Okokmilaga drainage is a sparsely used region and the park service did not know of any other hikers in the area, Quinley said.
Bear attacks are rare in the 8.5-million-acre Gates of the Arctic, he said. The last incident occurred three years ago when an aggressive black bear threatening people along the Alatna River prompted park officials to close the area.
In 1996, a Washington, D.C. man was fatally mauled during a float trip down the Noatak River. He and another man were hiking through dense brush about a mile from the river when they surprised a sow grizzly with a cub at close range. The sow attacked and killed one of the men, the first fatal mauling in the park’s 28-year history.
Community Discussion
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Thank goodness this is the kind of bear we can shoot when it gets a taste for humans. With the new laws passed by the outsiders there is serious question whether we can shoot nuisance polar bears that prey upon the villages.
Come on, tell us again about how wrong it is to shoot bears. Boo hoo the poor bear. It probably won't be able to sleep for a week after such a scare.
poor bear! mean women!
SOOOOOO? do I contribute to NRA or PETA??
Well, that "spiritual wilderness journey" turned into a "spiritual wilderness nightmare" to the poor woman. That kind of experience is unforgettable.
I'm glad she wasn't critically hurt or killed. I also hope that Park officials are able to track and possibly destroy the bear. However, I don't see what it has to do with guns, 'mean women', or mocking people who don't shoot animals--there is absolutely NOTHING in the article about it. I don't see the point of these comments.
What I would like to know is: what is a 'food tent'? Surely, they don't keep their food in it? If so, that was their major error. Googling the term brings up some flimsy-looking mesh things that cover food on picnic tables. Does anyone else know if 'food tent' means something different in this context?
I'm very sorry for that poor woman's horrible experience, but have you other readers looked up the website of "Her Wild Song"? I could have gotten a bad first impression, but the whole outfit strikes me as... curious. I don't get the impression that they are a very practical bunch. Of course, I could be totally wrong, but that web site doesn't exactly scream, "We have excellent wilderness training combined with good common sense."
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Hey AKLOWN, thanks for being an a**hole. And while the woman will most likely be OK, it sounds like from the story, typing in jokes seems a bit callous, don'tcha think, you bunch of jerkoffs.
Yep, Alaska will give you a spiritual tour you will never forget..Mother nature can be a spiritual place and also it can easily and I mean easily be a hideous and dangerous place. Hope for a speedy recover for the young lady.
AKLOWN, that was totally uncalled for .... but pretty funny.
our prayers go out to that woman. may she have a speedy recovery.
So much for the little brass bells theory.
Lucky that she is alive.
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