Welcome (back) to my (fat) bear talk | 03
The Washington Post sent me back to Katmai National Park to photograph the resident coastal brown bears before the start of Fat Bear Week. Here's how it went.
Welcome back to my newsletter, which is now mostly dedicated to bears.
For those new here (here being a loose concept seeing as this is my third newsletter ever) or who need a refresher: earlier this summer, I visited Katmai National Park to photograph coastal brown bears fishing the beginning of the salmon run.
It was incredible and you can read about it here.
At the time I that I wrote about that experience, I had started thinking about how I could back to see and photograph the bears next year. Deep down, I think I was trying to manifest the support of a publication, but it felt like a pipe dream. Still, with the help and encouragement of my peers, I geared up to pitch some of my photographs for Fat Bear Week. Unbeknownst to me, Lauren Bulbin, a photo editor at the Washington Post who I had been meaning to pitch to came across some of my images and called me up with a proposition — would I be interested in licensing some photos to the Post, and also would I want to go back to photograph the bears for Fat Bear Week? To which my answer was of course yes, and:
Natalie Compton, a staff writer for By The Way, and I each spent a few days at Brooks Camp in Katmai to see the bears in all their fat glory. For those unfamiliar with Fat Bear Week, Natalie probably puts it best:
Think of Fat Bear Week as a March Madness meets Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, but for a bracket of 12 brown bears in southwest Alaska’s remote Katmai National Park and Preserve.
It’s a single-elimination tournament where fans vote online for their favorite contenders as they finish beefing up for winter hibernation. The last two units battle in the finals (on the internet, not real life) for the title of Fattest Bear on Fat Bear Tuesday.
But the larger goal of Fat Bear Week is to promote conservation efforts to preserve places like Katmai.
Last night, Fat Bear Week voters crowned their champion, 128 Grazer. Here’s one of my favorite photos of her from earlier in the season.
Treat yourself and read Natalie’s full story: In Alaska’s fat bear capital, internet-famous animals draw huge fans.
Lauren also edited a wonderful picture story: Survival of the fattest: Alaska’s brown bears, in photos.
This assignment was special for a number of reasons, but mostly because it was born of out me photographing something that I cared about on my own time. I’m aware that getting other work published through personal projects can be much more of an uphill battle, but I am celebrating this win for what it was — a chance to go back to Alaska and bring people into the world of Katmai’s bears that I fell in love with.
Below is the beautiful spread that ran in print. Note: this post is best viewed in your Substack app or on a desktop.
After my last post, a dear friend and photo editor expressed interest in wanting to learn about the nitty gritty process of this kind of trip. I was also eager to get into it, so while my first bear talk was focused more on the individual bears, this one will include a little more on the process of camping and photographing itself. Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of individual bears in this post, too. Mama bears…baby bears…teenage bears…grandpa bears…
Let’s dive in like this bear going after a salmon.
Packing
There are plenty of things to worry about having and forgetting for a normal assignment, let alone when you’re working and camping on a remote peninsula. Nevertheless, I was up for the challenge. After all, I would basically be doing the same thing that I did before. Just by myself (this was my first solo camping trip!!!), in colder weather, during the shoulder season. The shoulder season part is pertinent because after September 17, services at Brooks Camp slowly shut down depending on the weather, aka the speed at which winter arrives. That includes having running water and a working electric fence to deter the bears from entering the campground. So I packed my water filter and external chargers and hoped for the best. In the end, it was a non-issue, and I ended up having running water, an electric bear fence, and a functioning visitor center where I could charge batteries and dump my cards for the hours it was open.
Because this was the latest in the year I had ever camped in Alaska, I wanted to be extra prepared for a) the cold and b) the rain. All it takes is one bad rain to soak everything. Even though I got lucky with pretty clear weather, I think my pieces of rain gear were the most important to me:
Women’s Neptune Jacket: This is the first rain coat I’ve had that has actually kept me dry. It’s made for commercial fishing. Go figure.
ThinkTank Hydrophobia DM 300-600 + Hydrophobia D 24-70 Rain Covers: I’ve engineered lots of different make-shift rain covers with plastic grocery bags and dry bags, but I didn’t want to have to deal with that for this trip. These rain covers are not cheap, but they are a real game changer. The separate eye piece that secures the cover to your viewfinder sets this apart from other covers that might only have plastic over the viewfinder or back of the camera. When it started raining, I was able to focus on other things (like the bears right in front of me) rather than bring preoccupied with how I was going to keep my camera dry.
Getting there
I was in NYC the weekend before my trip, so I took the most direct route to Katmai from there: New York City to Seattle to Anchorage to King Salmon. It’s smart to pad your schedule when traveling to Katmai in the event of the common cancelation or delay, so I spent the night in King Salmon in order to catch a float plane the next morning.
Brooks Camp is almost exclusively accessible by water taxi or float plane, and by mid-September the water taxi stops running. This was fine though, because it was important to me that I photograph Bristol Bay from the air to give a sense of place and scale. I’m also obsessed with the way bodies of water and tundra look from above. I ended up chartering a float plane through Branch River Air from King Salmon to Brooks Camp and back. I had never ridden in a float plane before, and it was very exciting!
Brooks Camp, a very special place
Brooks Camp is located on a peninsula at the mouth of Brooks River, along the southern coast of Alaska in an area known as Bristol Bay. When you arrive, there’s a good chance there will be bears on the beach. This was true in my case, but they were far away enough that the pilot landed without risk of bothering them. After an orientation where you learn how to behave around bears, (if you’re staying in one of Katmai’s 60 camping spots and not the cabins which are $900/night), you receive your permit, which you fix to your tent. I made camp while it drizzled and the interior of my tent got moderately damp. The most appropriate start to an Alaskan camping adventure. I’ll let the rest of the photos speak for themselves.
A day in my life at Brooks Camp
The irony of my trip is that while there was truly never a dull moment, I also developed somewhat of a routine. This was also true of my earlier trip, except daylight wasn’t really a limiting factor then. The day always went something a little like this: Wake up and make breakfast, check the beach for bears, watch bears on the bridge or the falls, come back to the campground for lunch, decide where you want to watch bears for the evening before it gets dark, make dinner, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Using the timestamps on my photos, here’s what my last full day at Brooks Camp, Sept. 22 looked like for me.
7:00AM
I wake up to my alarm, which I set for 7AM so I’d have enough time to get up and ready before the sun rises around 7:45AM. There’s a light layer of condensation beading at the foot of my sleeping bag and the sides of my tent. It will dry by the time I’m back in the evening. I change as quickly as possible while trying to retain the warmth in my bag.
7:52AM
In between making my instant coffee and oatmeal breakfast, I notice a mother and cubs making their way down the beach as the run rises and the rest of camp starts to wake up. I think it’s 901 and her spring cubs, but can’t be 100% sure. They walk past camp, and then circle back a little while later.
9:27AM
On my way out for the morning, I stop in the visitor center where I replace my dead batteries with the ones I left overnight to charge, and ingest yesterday’s photos. My portable chargers are shot, but the visitor center offers electricity for the hours it is open. The park staff were incredibly accommodating of me and other photographers, and I tried to get in and out as quickly as possible before any orientations aka bear school start.
10:43AM
I’ve watched plenty of people walk from camp to the falls alone, and have done it myself. But especially along the Brooks Falls trail where bears tend to pop out and walk the trail too, it’s generally advised that people travel in groups. I accompany a group of photographers to Brooks Lake where they’ve spent a few days staking out the morning fishers. It’s quiet, and a nice change of scenery. 3-4 bears pass through while we are there.
12:09PM
All food must stay in designated food caches to prevent unnecessary scents that may attract bears from traveling around the park. On my way to grab a snack back at the campground, I see 806 Jr. also known as “The Tank” and “Phelps.” His former nickname is due to his large size as a spring cub. It’s no wonder he won this year’s Fat Bear Week Jr. contest. His latter nickname is due to the fact that he was swept down Brooks Falls on multiple occasions early in the summer trying to stay close to his mother as she fished the river.
1:10PM
After lunch, while walking on the beach back towards the bridge, I see two cubs running towards me from about 100 yards out. I duck into the woods to get out of their way and hurry into a nearby eating area surrounded by an electric fence. To the right of the eating area, the cubs have fled up a tree for safety. Through a clearing in the woods between me and the beach, I see a moose swimming in Naknek Lake, and learn that it has separated 901 from her two cubs. As 901 realizes that her cubs have disappeared, she starts walking further into camp and woofing for them (yes, woofing…kind of like a dog). Eventually, after some debate, the cubs descend from the tree and head to the beach where they last saw mom, even though she is no longer there. Rangers stand on the porch of the visitor center as the cubs waddle past in the wrong direction. A few moments later, they scurry back up from the beach, as 901 appears from the camp-side of the woods. We all hold our breath and watch as 901 touches noses with her cubs and the family is reunited.
3:38PM
As I return to camp, 273 walks along the beach while day-trippers board their float plane out of Brooks Camp. Bear tech Eric Johnston supervises.
6:19PM
I debate about walking to the falls, but decide to stay on the bridge over the lower river where plenty of bears are fishing.
8:06PM
The sun starts to set, and I’m graced with a beautiful stripe of pink across fresh snow that has settled on the mountains surrounding Brooks.
9:58PM
I have to get up early tomorrow to pack up my tent and gear, so I turn in early as well. The only reading material I brought was Mike Fitz’s, The Bears of Brooks Falls which I read by light of my headlamp.
Some parting thoughts
I’ve been drawn to animals since I was a little (I was bound at the hip with my Wildlife Fact File and wanted to be a vet when I grew up), but only in the last five years have I taken time to hike, camp, and view wildlife. These trips have always offered me solace and a chance to be awe-filled. Not for work. Just for fun. Now that those two spheres have finally collided, though, I feel compelled to keep exploring more wild places with my journalism cap on.
With that in mind, I’d like to leave you all with the Washington Post podcast series: Field Trip which is hosted and produced by Lillian Cunningham. It’s an honest look into “the messy past and uncertain future” of our national parks. With its tricky balance of tourism and conservation, the Katmai is not unlike some of the places featured in the series.
This was a long one, so congrats and thank you to everyone who made it to the end. May the bears be with you!