This is getting out of hand

Getting off of the helicopter with my non-wildlife believer field partner yesterday, I said, "Ya know, today feels like a bear day. Yep, we're going to see a bear. Heck, make that two. I've seen two bears with every lead so far. " He immediately rolled his eyes at me, "There is no wildlife in Alaska!" It really did feel like a bear day - they love wandering in the relatively open forests besides sources of water and we would be in that kind of habitat most of the day. Around lunchtime, we're sitting at our soil pit when I hear a rustling in the forest adjacent to the wetland we were working in. Not being able to see beyond the tall shrubs and grass we sat in, I jumped up and spotted the movement in the bushes. "Ahh...I think we have company." He jumps up from the hole and looks in the direction I heard the noise from. "Look, over there." I didn't shout or make noises because I wanted him to see what I was seeing. Initially he didn't see it, but standing only 50 feet from us was a black bear. How cute! *HUFF* *CLICK* *CLICK* *GRRR* Ok, not so cute. He drew his gun, I unclipped mine and grabbed the bear spray. The bear was grindings it's teeth, popping its jaw and huffing at us. Hmm, this was not a happy bear. "Well???" I said to him "Ok, I'm a believer!!!!" Once he saw the bear with his own eyes, we started making noises to make her go away but she kept making aggressive noises towards us and stood her ground. Walking slightly downwind and towards us, she put her nose in the air to get a whiff. Mmm, stinky humans. She started to circle us when I saw movement in the tree directly in front of us. "HOLY SHIT! Look at the top of the tree!" 35 feet in the air was the source of all the frustration from the sow - her cub had ran up the tree. Now the cub was whining and crying out for mom but mom was nowhere to be seen. "WAAAAAAAAAAAA MUAAAAAAAAAAA" We stood still to let the cub descend from the tree, and when it did, it continued to whine. Our helicopter was scheduled to pick us up in 10min and we still had work to do on the soil pit, so standing as my field partner's bear guard, he finished the pit while I kept my eyes in the direction of the bears. "Get up, get up!" I said to him. The mom played hide-and-go-seek with me behind a mound and then came up over the mound towards us. Something must have distracted her or she must have reunited with her cub because shortly thereafter she trotted off into the distance. This whole thing must have lasted 10-15min but it felt like forever. I really don't know why the bears come out when I'm around but I'm now known as "Dances with Bears" or the "Bear Whisperer" because of it.

Due to all of the bear encounters we (I) have had, and the fact that someone was injured by a bear recently at a camp we're going to, the company has decided to bring out one of our bear guards for the next trip. Tonight one of my coworkers was looking at the schedule and instead of the usual even number of people going on the trip, there were 17 people listed. Usually we're in groups of two - one tech for every lead, but one team had three people. Scrolling through the group assignments, mine appeared to be the odd number "Greta, Lead A, & Bear Guard". ROFL!! They've assigned me a bear guard! Oh this is too funny - if I keep this up I'm going to get fired.