09/09/2026
Being born and raised in Alaska, I know I take a lot of things for granted. So lately, I’ve been trying to see the world a little differently.
My normal point of view has always been from a hunter’s perspective, and up until now, that has mostly given me a hunter’s experience.
I went to Kodiak Island to photograph bears, and this time I left my gun at home. A friend handed me a can of bear spray, told me about a couple of places I should check out, and off I went.
This time I wasn’t a hunter. I was a photographer.
I walked away from the experience humbled.
I’ve been around bears. From a hunting perspective, I’ve been around a lot of them. But this was different.
There was no objective beyond watching, learning, and trying to capture what was happening in front of me.
I spent hours watching bears fish, feed, interact with one another, and simply go about their lives. The longer I stayed, the more I realized just how heavenly this place felt.
From an Interior Alaska hunter’s perspective, Kodiak felt almost eerily peaceful. I had traded the r***e for a camera, and somewhere along the way, the entire experience changed with it. At times, I felt like a wildlife photographer halfway across the world on safari, except I was right here in Alaska.
Here’s something I learned afterward that put the experience into even more perspective: according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, only one person has been killed by a bear on Kodiak in the past 75 years, and a bear injures a person only about once every other year.
That doesn’t mean Kodiak brown bears aren’t dangerous. They are incredibly powerful wild animals and deserve our respect. But those numbers challenged some of my own assumptions about what it means to share the landscape with them.
Sometimes experiencing something from a different perspective teaches you more than you expected.
In this case, I may have just found bear heaven on Earth.
Walking a mile in another bear’s shoes.
Kodiak Island, Alaska 🇺🇸
