Bears in Alaska

Do you guys have an estate plan set up in the event both you and your spouse were simultaneously fatalized? From something like a plane crash? Or car accident? Or, perhaps, coming across a bear in the woods?

Let’s play an imaginary game we’ll call: You’re Walking Along A Trail In Alaska When You Come Across A Bear. Pretend you’re standing in the middle of a hiking trail in the woods. A pretty blue sky and white glaciers melt around you. The sounds of the wind in the pine trees and the burbling of a meltwater creek mix sweetly nearby. You are happily trekking along, making the proper amount of noise with Wife Unit, in the half-joking spirit of warning bears of your presence. You don’t really think you’ll meet up with a bear, but there’s been enough fearmongering delivered aboard the cruise ship that you’re not taking any chances. Just then, in the midst of your assured state of we-may-be-puny-humans-but-we-have-guns confidence, a bear happens to emerge from the woods and cross your path.

Now, prior to this instance, I did attend on the cruise ship two environmentalist presentations on the varieties of bears. There of lots of bear types. Some big, some small. The bear that came out of the woods definitely wasn’t one of the largest bears on the planet. But let me just write you that at the moment of first contact the diminutive brown bear was playing the lead role of Ursa Very F*****g Major.

The picture is not doctored in any way. That’s how close we were to Mr. Kill The Tourist Bear.

EDIT by matthew: Created smaller image.