I got an after hours job cleaning the base PX in Kodiak. I'm stripping and waxing the deck in the perpetual twilight of winter and putting on a final high shine with a power buffer. I backed into a mounted brownie on display; standing upright, forepaws raised and teeth unaturally snarling. The bear started to rock sightly from the impact creating an animated shadow not unlike a Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoon. I screamed, ran and slid in my socks across the newly waxed deck into the opposite wall: Where I crumpled to the floor with the wind knocked out of me. And then I saw my adversary staring off into eternity with glass eyes. I looked around sheepishly to see if anyone was walking by at midnight and witnessed my performance- Thankfully no. I've had lots of encounters with bears and 'bear people.' Most were friendly ( the bears) and the less so among my own species understood my alpha male woofing enough to back off. Well, Timothy Treadwell just tried talking in his sing song formulae as I growled. That was my scariest, most dangerous ( walls built for arctic winds are SOLID) bear encounter. It happened in my mind, such as it was at 19 years. A dangerous place sometimes, one prone to pointing cans of bug spray and paint cans in the WRONG direction. So i'lI pass on the pepper spray <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I sing DANCING WITH BEARS on the trail. You should imagine the beasties crashing ahead of me to escape the fingernails on chalkboard sound of my voice <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />