Bear in the Alley

Bear in the Alley

I take my break down by the river. All around I see verdant leaves spreading out like my own hands opening, palms up, receiving the light of the sun. Cottonwood buds have popped. The smell of their resin is on the breeze, overpowering the chemical air of the smelting plant upstream.

After lunch I’m back up on the street, visiting the secret corners of this tiny city, the place where a couple huddles under a stairwell to fix; the parking lot where an elderly woman lives in her car; the hidden patch of grass where a person finds space to sort the contents of her shopping cart without being stared at.

Eventually I make it to the alley.

I’m looking forward to seeing people there, but also a little apprehensive. A lot could have happened since my last visit a week ago - especially now during the overdose catastrophe. As I walk down the grey corridor between the buildings I am greeted by the voice of a young man. He’s gesturing wildly toward me, and shouting:

“Bear in alley. Bear in the alley!”

He’s just clowning around; a joker who finds humour even under harsh circumstances. His gesticulations get several of my other regulars to laugh and wave hello as I approach. Most people I work with know of my association with grizzlies. Out here I have been referred to as the “Bear Man,” but this is the first time I have been called a “bear,” at least in this context.

We smile as we greet and exchange hellos.

In this dismal and desperate place, where the smells of urine intermingle with garbage, and memories of community members who have died are forever scrawled onto the walls of individual psyches, there is also some laughter, happiness, smiles, and warm welcoming. As strange as it may sound, there are times when this alley feels just like any other place where people hang out and gather.

Before asking for any of the resources (food, juice, grocery cards, or harm reduction supplies) I have brought to distribute, a woman with nothing but the clothes on her body asks with genuine curiosity if the grizzlies are out of their dens yet.

I know she loves animals.

We have talked about the foster home she lived in years back. This was before she aged out of care, before the extra government assistance she had as a youth came to an end. Her foster parents owned a farm. They had many animals - cows and chickens, and she derived great joy from taking care of them, especially the horses. She told me she preferred their company to that of most people.

Yes, I say, in answer to her question. The bears are out of the den. In fact, I was just with a Grizzly Bear a few days before.

I explain how I had travelled deep into the Purcell Range, to a meadow I know that melts out early in the season where the wild Spring greens that grizzlies love to nibble are plentiful. I speak about the male bear I encountered. How I found his trail at higher elevation in the snow. I described what it was like to kneel down and put my fingers into the impressions left by his paws - how, when the tracks are fresh, you can feel the lingering energy of these great animals being transmitted up from the ground, an energy that animates and enlivens the landscape with a presence that I can only describe as holy and God-like.

As I tell this story, a small circle of the people I serve gather a bit tighter around me.

They are silent - just listening.

The tracks led me down into the meadow (not quite as rich in plant foods as usual since it has been such a cold Spring), and then further out onto some mudflats. I sat in an open area with a good view all around. If the bear appeared, it would see me from some distance and therefore wouldn’t be surprised. I never stalk them. I don’t want to transmit a sneaky or predatory kind of energy. I want them to be able to choose whether or not to be in proximity. There are no expectations that they show up in the flesh, just an openness for encounter if it feels right.

I pick a place and wait.

Feeling it out…again, the land animated with the omnipotence of the Grizzly - the animal that in my experience is most often incredibly peaceful, gracious, and tolerant, so unlike the slavering, unpredictable, monster we have been taught to hate and fear by a colonial mindset that demands subservience through force.

“Don’t you get scared out there,” a young man I will call Billy asked.

He’s a sweetheart. So polite; so gentle and soft-spoken. He’s also very timid. Billy has been through a lot, of course, otherwise he wouldn’t be here.

“It’s just so dangerous out there, isn’t it?”

Billy has been using drugs since his mom gave him his first hit of crack, at age 12. Now in his early 20s, he smokes fentanyl.

Without saying anything, I weigh the danger that I put myself in against the danger Billy faces on the daily before answering. While I have been following the bear’s path longer than Billy has been alive (28 years this Summer), both of us have hundreds of experiences within our individual realms of knowledge to draw from.

“Yes,” I finally say. “There are risks. Very real ones. And I do feel fear sometimes. But I am also really careful.”

More than anything, beyond the fear and beyond the danger, mostly what I feel in the bear’s presence is really blissful. In the moments that I get to breathe the same air as them, for the times I get to follow in their footsteps, for the nights I get to sleep on the same ground that they walk upon, in those moments, everything else disappears except for what is immediately present. There are no more problems, no more worries, no unresolved traumas bubbling up…all of that vanishes and everything just feels alright.

There is a pause…

…a moment of silence to process and integrate what has been communicated before the young man who had smoked fentanyl to numb his emotional pain a few minutes before nods his head in agreement, saying “I can totally relate to that.”

*Disclaimer: names, places, and details are re-ordered to maintain confidentiality.