Hellooo? Honeeeeeeey?

She’s makin’ me sleep on the log again. That’s the last time I forget to bring in the trash!

“This is ‘Homeslice’, he is a black bear, looking into our cabin, we got in trouble from the bosses for letting him get that close to our cabin. But I couldn’t help getting that great photo. And, I think he might have eaten something gross, like an old fish carcass. Right before he laid down in this cute as heck position, he was sitting on the log gagging like he was throwing up in his mouth (not being cute at all) he then laid down
for about 30 minutes. I was working nearby sampling Sockeye Salmon for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. We saw ‘Homeslice’ quite a lot that summer. I feel he was abandoned early or his Mom was shot by hunters cause he seemed too small to be on his own.
Photo by me: Bob F.

PS- why the name ‘Homeslice’?

The Short version: Just ’cause.
The Long version: I’ve been going up to that same spot in AK for the last 11 years. I like to think it is the same bear, but when my co-worker and I first saw him he was a lone cub that would come down to the river with his Mom. We then called him ‘PocketBear’ just because he was small and cute. We would watch as his Mom would leave the scene while ‘PocketBear’ would be sniffing around, and then he’d look up and see that she was gone. I think Mom may have had an alchohol problem or was just exercising bad parenting. The following summer there was this teen cub, which we imagined was ‘PocketBear’. He was a bit of a pain, he’d get too close to camp. (We are meant to scare them away, yelling, throwing rocks, etc. We’d do all of this but he had no fear) One day my co-worker and I were working inside a fish trap when just behind us in the river was this bear, my co-worker turned and yelled “get outta here Homeslice!” and he scurried away. A few summers later many different bears came and went. We name them all.”