A Case of Misidentification
by Ian Fisher
the edge of the creek way down in the bottom of a canyon. My dad declared the descent to check it out too dangerous for my underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, but he decided to try it for himself. Twenty minutes later and covered in bramble scratches, he returned carrying an elk antler. Sure, it was bleached with age and half rotted away where it had been sitting in the creek, but it was my first shed antler, and I was hooked. Ever since then, I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time looking for shed antlers; although, much to my chagrin, I have only found a few over the years. So that’s why I so willingly left my fishing plans to hunt for elk sheds on the floodplain, even though it was the completely wrong time of year for them to be on the ground.
And so, fishing forgotten, I crisscrossed my way through the area, eyes to the ground. It’s amazing how once your mind is set on the hunt, every piece of cottonwood bark looks like the tine of a 250-inch bull elk’s lost antler jutting from the soil. Pretty soon you go cross-eyed from the search and end up checking every little branch you can see. It was a tedious way to cover country, but I enjoyed every moment of it.
Twenty minutes into my search, a sound stopped me dead in my tracks. I stood frozen and listening.
“Phhhuuuuuuuuuuwweeeeeet-huumphhh.”
I heard the sound again, a low whistle-like sound with a gruff ending. It came from my right, near where the river and forest met, maybe sixty yards away. Now, I have heard a fair amount of animal calls in my life, everything from the hammering chatter of a Stellar’s jay to the haunting scream of a mountain lion, but I had never heard anything like this sound. It sounded almost strangled, like a kid’s toy getting run over by a truck tire. I decided to try and see what kind of creature would make such a noise.
Next to me was a long-dead cottonwood that had cracked and folded over ten feet up from its base, making a triangle with the ground. On all fours, I silently padded my way up the long side of the triangle, using the folded over tree-trunk as a ramp to the top of the stump. Perched on this vantage point I must have looked like an oversized Mowgli, but the extra elevation allowed me to see a dark shape moving through the brush along the riverbank. My first thought was that it was a cervid, an elk or deer, probably because I had been thinking of nothing else for the last twenty minutes. However, unless it was a calf, the outline I could see was much too small to be an elk. Also, I’ve never heard a deer make any sound even remotely close to what I heard. A minute later my cervid theory was completely busted when the dark shadow walked through a slightly sparser section of brush. While I couldn’t see exactly what the animal was, it was walking with a swinging gait, nothing like how a deer would walk. I decided to try and get a closer look.
Now at this point you might be yelling at me, calling me a fool for not realizing that the shape I was looking at was a bear. And you are right, for of course that was what it was. In the back of my mind, I probably knew it was a bear, but shed hunting does strange things to my brain. In that moment, the only animals that existed in my
walk right into me.
At this point we were close enough that I had no idea what a sudden movement on my part would make him do. Unless I really scared him, I knew I wasn’t in much danger. However, I had to do something, or soon he’d be brushing against my legs. Moving only my eyes, I quickly surveyed my options. He still blocked my path to the river and so going straight or to my right were out of the question. Really, my only options were to turn back or to break left. I chose the latter.
With three steps, as smooth and unhurried as I could muster, I climbed out of the creek bed and stood up to my waist in a patch of thimble berries. This movement, of course, spooked my bear friend but instead of running anywhere, he scampered standing at the end of the bottleneck. He climbed up six feet or so up a tree and poked his head around to see what had made such a ruckus. The base of the tree was only about fifteen feet away, so I’d wager he got a pretty good look at me. Now, when I chose the thimble berry thicket option, I had failed to remember that they grow in damp, swampy areas. This patch was no exception, and my intrusion had awoken a whole swarm of mosquitoes. Soon, I had the general feeling of being eaten alive, and it took all my self-control to not run in circles slapping myself. Instead, I bit my lip and held my ground, locked in a staring contest with Mr. Bear. He seemed more curious than anything, but in that moment, he could have been fuming mad for all I cared. All I wanted was to escape my mosquito tormentors.
I felt like I aged a year or two, waiting for that bear to move out of my way. In actuality it only took five minutes or so for my bear friend to decide I wasn’t worth hiding from anymore and to back down the tree. He paused once he was back on all fours, as if trying to decide which way to go. He looked first toward the river, and it seemed like that was where he wanted to go. In my heart, I pleaded with him not to go that way. I didn’t want to have to wait in another patch of mosquitos for him to get out of my way. He must have heard me because he looked back north, out of my desired path. After some deliberation, he made up his mind and moseyed away.
With a sigh of relief, I saw my escape route open and bear-free. Without pausing to say goodbye, I ditched my mosquito friends and booked it through the bottleneck out onto the riverbank. Once out in the open, I slowed down and looked back at the dark smudge of Mr. Bear as he lumbered out of sight. I stood staring for a while at where he had disappeared into the undergrowth, lost in thought. Slowly, I turned and walked towards camp. In my mind, I began to think of how best to spin the yarn of my adventure back at camp. It had been an afternoon to remember.
"A Case of Misidentification" is a story that encapsulates much of my childhood experience: adventuring in the wilderness, meeting up with animals, a carefree enjoyment of the world, and much more. The style and voice I use are intended to evoke the culture I grew up in and to pay homage to the ancient art of campfire storytelling. I wrote this story while laid up with a broken ankle, watching spring bloom over the world outside my window. In many ways, writing this story was an outlet for my adventurous energy during the weeks of immobility. The following is a true story, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
It was one of those hot summer afternoons in the North Cascades when the sunlight forms rays in the thick air, made hazy by far off wildfires. The rest of my family was back at camp, napping the hours away in the tent. However, I can never nap in the mountains; the rocky slopes and glacier-fed rivers call to me with voices I cannot ignore. The ridges arch their backs, bristling with trees that beckon me like the sirens of old, singing, “adventure is waiting for you.” How anyone could deafen their ears to such a melody is beyond me.
All that week, I had been exploring and fishing along the shoreline of the Stehekin River to the south of our campsite. However, this particular afternoon, I decided it was time to push north into new territory. I set off, fishing rod in hand, whistling a tune as I went. I picked my way up the riverbank, hopping from stone to stone, bare feet slapping dusty river rocks that only saw water during the spring snowmelt. It was August, so my feet were hard and thick with callouses from a summer well spent. At every bend and pause of the rushing river, I cast out my fishing rod to see who was home. Every once in a while, I would be rewarded with a flash of silver in the depths and a pull on my line. A few seconds of fun later and yet another plump trout would be splashing in the shallows, waiting for me to unhook it and send it back to its watery hole. I continued up the river this way for an hour or so, soaking in the lazy nature of the afternoon.
Soon I reached a section of the river where the water picked up speed and ran straight and wide for a quarter mile. There the water was shallow and covered the streambed from shoreline to shoreline, leaving me without a bank to walk on. I decided to pop into the woods to the west of the Stehekin to get around to more fishing holes. That area to the west is a floodplain, populated by spaced -out cottonwood trees mixed with ponderosa pines and vine maple. The ground there is soft underfoot, mostly sand and loam layered in a thick cushion that made my barefoot passage a breeze. No more than ten seconds after I entered the woods, I sighted a large pile of fairly fresh elk droppings. Soon after I saw evidence of where an elk herd had made their beds amidst the underbrush. After seeing that, I completely forgot my plans for fishing up the river.
Now, you might ask, “Why would he forget his fishing trip so easily?” You see, when I was ten years old or so, my family camped in the backwoods of Montana at a place called Moose Creek. While hiking, I sighted a spot of white on
memory had four hooves and sharp things coming out of their foreheads. Plus, who ever heard of a bear whistling? So, foolishly, I continued forward, slinking between the cottonwoods and toward the riverbank.
Soon enough, I saw him, a scraggly young black bear that would have only tipped the scales at around 150lbs. He was sniffing at some shrubbery way off to my right, obviously oblivious to my presence. As soon as I saw him though, I instinctively let out a loud “Hey bear!” in his general direction. I watched him spook off to the south, just enjoying the encounter. Suddenly, I realized that I had made a critical mistake. You see, the floodplain I had been walking through was bordered to the east by the Stehekin River and to the west by a creek, banked with an impenetrable thicket of blackberry and salmonberry bushes. This creek ran alongside the river at an angle before finally joining it further to the south. This formed a tight bottleneck that I had walked through twenty minutes before to get to our campsite. However, I had just spooked a black bear right toward that bottleneck. Granted, it wasn’t a very big black bear, but I didn’t think tangling with a bear of any size was much of a good idea. If I didn’t do something quickly, I was going to have a hard time getting home.
I sprang into action and ran back toward the creek as silently as I could. Upon reaching it, I veered left along the edge of the thicket. I glided across the floodplain, my bare feet making hardly any sound on the soft forest floor. I never thought I would find myself in a footrace with a black bear, but that was exactly what was happening. I had no idea where that bear was, but I knew that I needed to beat him to the gap. As I neared the bottleneck, I slowed down and was more deliberate with my steps. If I was going to meet the bear again, it would probably be now, and I wanted to see him before he heard me.
Sneaking along, I reached a dry riverbed, probably where the creek’s overflow ran during the spring floods. It wasn’t a deep depression, no more than two feet lower than the surrounding forest floor, but it was a clear path that led toward the gap. I dropped into it and stole my way toward freedom.
At this point, I was quite enjoying myself. As a kid, I used to sneak up on the deer that would try to come and eat from our gardens. A couple times, I got close enough to touch their backs. In that moment in the creek bed, I felt like I was back home, trying to not get kicked by a black-tailed deer. Finally, I reached the last bend before the end of the bottleneck. Slowly, crouched low to the ground, I crept around the outside edge of the corner and then froze. Not more than ten yards in front of me, and in the same creek bed as me, was my friend the black bear.
I was stock-still, half crouched, and barely breathing. The bear had his nose to the ground and was digging in the loose sand for insects with his claws. The breeze was in my face, and I must have been silent, because he had no idea I was there. Slowly, I eased up into a standing position. The black bear moved on from his sandpile-digging and started shuffling down the creek bed, right toward me. If I didn’t do something pretty soon, he was going to