When you camp at Brooks Camp, you either stay in one of the lodge cabins, which, although very nice, are incredibly far out of our price range. The other option is the campground. We opted to stay in our price range and camp.
The campground is about half a mile from Brooks Lodge. The paths are well marked and very easy to follow. The only thing, of course, is that you have to watch out for bears along the way. Luckily, we didn’t have any close run-ins during our time at Brooks. We did, though, get to experience what I like to call, “The New Jurassic Park.”
At the campground you are surrounded by an electric fence. You have to open the gate and then lock yourself in. The fence is supposed to keep the bears out. After thinking about it, we realized that the fence wouldn’t keep an angry or hungry bear out of the campground. They are massive beasts and could destroy the fence in seconds. Was the fence made to keep us in? Or was it simply created to give us the illusion of feeling safe?
You were made to feel safe because you stored your food in a food storage cabin and your gear was stored right next door. The only things that were out in the open are your tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. It kind of gives you this sense of comfort. Ah, I don’t have a backpack covered with oil and spices in my tent and I’m surrounded by an electric fence.
To build on the point made in one of the earlier blog posts, we just aren’t part of the equation. You can fish at Brooks Camp, but it is recommended that you practice catch and release. If a bear approaches your line, you should cut it and walk away (because they have learned that fisherman, often mean easy fish for them to eat). If you do want to keep a fish, you have to immediately take it to the fish house and freeze it. You cannot gut it in camp; you can’t even keep it on the beach for a few minutes while you keep fishing.
They used to have a fish-cleaning house. All of the blood and guts would go into the ground outside the house, and every year the bears would dig it up going crazy for all of the bloody fish smell. They stopped that practice and moved to freezing the fish and decreasing the opportunities for human/bear interactions.
The only time that they have had a negative interaction in the campground happened many years ago, before the Jurassic Park fences. It happened when they used to let people catch and cook fish in camp. A man cooked a fish over the campfire, and fell asleep with fish juice and smell all over him. A bear came and bit him on the butt. Other campers quickly woke up and scared the bear off. That’s it.
You would think that common sense would be enough to do the job of keeping people safe. History has told us that you can’t trust people to make the right decision. Some people were complaining about the length of the bear presentation and how they didn’t think it was necessary for them to watch. I get it; you want to see a bear, and you don’t need to go to the stupid training. But maintaining an ecosystem and a balance where we can observe the bears in such close proximity is a blessing, one that is worth living in Jurassic Park-like conditions to experience.