In south central Alaska, where the young Alaska range thrusts its ragged saw tooth peaks against the sky and stands as a barrier to man's dominion over the great wild tundra of the north, a placid lake colored grey green is nestled in the foothills. Fed by glacial streams it empties into an arm of the sea through Big River. Bald eagles live there surveying the lake from snags high above the rippling water, and so do loons whose lonely cries at dusk remind a human hearer that the edge of another world begins there. Big River Lake was the home of a mother bear who would go to Wolverine cove to fish the red coho and sockeye salmon crowding the shallows, made desperate to spawn by eons of their tribe's tradition of going home to the sacred gravels of their birth. So intent was mother bear on catching fish for herself and cubs that she grew indifferent to the frequent encounters with humans fishing it same place. Later other humans called "tree-huggers" by the blue-eyes with thundersticks came just to watch her leap into the water from a boulder to stun her prey with her outstretched paws. Like everything human their behavior was strange to the brown bear they called "Baylee". But the humans made no threats and kept a respectful distance from her babies. So a truce existed for fifteen years at the mouth of Wolverine creek.One summer when fewer salmon than in past times were again laboring to lift their heavy bodies up the rock strewn creek beds, Baylee did not come back to fish in the cove. The lodge visitors did no see bears roaming the hills around the lake or fishing in the many steams pouring into Big River Lake. The bears were gone. People at the lodge wondered why the bears did not return to fish as they had for years. A biologist said perhaps a disease had spread through the tribe of brown bears around Big River Lake. Baylee was seen with a sick cub last season. Perhaps she too, had died from the infection. But Baylee was a strong and resourceful mother, experienced in the ways of the wild. Except for one chink in the armor of fang and claw nature gave her: she had lost her dislike of humans. Their strong order no longer caused her to flee. The truce of fifteen years had dulled the instincts protecting her from danger.
The human hunters of the moose tribe complained that the bears were eating all the moose. They could no longer mount the great antlers on the wall to prove their prowess, or dine on the
flavorful meat. "We must kill the bears!", they demanded to their chiefs. No hunter talked of the countless number of antlers hanging on the walls of the city, or the thick stacks of moose loin laying in the freezers. So the truce ended, and once again the thundersticks of man roared with fire and pain. Snares designed to cripple and maim an unsuspecting bear were laid down. Now Baylee is gone, and so are eighty five other brown and black bears in man's so-called "wildlife management unit" around Big River Lake. The loons still call at dusk, but their cry is even sadder now, as if morning the loss of brother bear.