From Monday night to Thursday night, we have had some of the most spectacular auroras I’ve seen since coming to Alaska. It’s been a wild light show – green, pink, red, and purple, with lines and sheets of light, of color, that whips and flickers across the night sky. Normally we look to the north for the auroras, but last week they covered the entire sky, north, south, east, west, and directly overhead. It was amazing, and I came to understand they were visible as far south as Texas.

As it happens, I already wrote about the auroras, so, no real need to do that again.

See Related: Aurora Borealis, Shining Down on Dallas

But there have been some other events in the Great Land this week as well.

Holy cow bear attack! This happened in SE Alaska, on Admiralty Island, home to one of the Great Land’s populations of black-tailed deer.

An Alaska woman is counting her blessings after surviving a terrifying bear attack while on a hunting trip last month in Southeast Alaska.

Forty-four-year-old Amanda Compton was hunting deer in late September with her friend, Nicholas Orr, on Admiralty Island, one of the most bear-dense areas in North America.

Admiralty Island is on my bucket list of places to visit; a friend of mine heads down that way every fall to hunt blacktails, as Amanda Compton was doing, and yes, he will affirm that this is a bear-rich environment.

The routine trip took a frightening turn when they suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a mother brown bear protecting her cub. Compton recalled the split-second moment when the bear charged from the brush, catching her completely off guard.

“From where I was, to me, it was just at 12 o’clock. A large bruin erupted from the brush and came straight at me, and there was no time to draw a gun,” Compton said.

She dropped to the ground and covered her head but the bear’s jaws clamped down on her skull. Miraculously, the attack lasted only a few seconds before the bear ran off, leaving Compton badly injured, but alive.

“It was so fast that I had to react immediately. I do remember it being on me and chewing on my head a little bit,” she said.

That’s scary. Bears are not to be trifled with, and a brownie with a cub should be given a wide berth – but sometimes things happen, no matter how careful someone is; Amanda Compton’s case sure reminds us of that. As of this writing, though, the one thing we don't yet know is how fat the bear was.

See Related: Alaska Man Monday - Moose Buggies and Fat Bears

No score on this one. We can all just be glad that Amanda Compton is going to be OK.

Speaking of which:

In Alaska, like in every other state that I’m aware of, all edible portions of any game animal have to be removed from the field before any hide, antlers, or anything else. And, yes, this is enforced.

On 9/6/24, Robert Fulton, age 55 of Nikiski, was cited for taking a sub-legal bull moose in GMU 13, failing to salvage all edible meat for human consumption, and transporting the antlers from the kill-site prior to transporting the meat to the departure point from the field. 

Now, to his credit, Mr. Fulton ‘fessed up and took his lumps.

On 10/8/24, Fulton pled guilty in Glennallen District Court to counts one and two, with count three being dismissed. He was ordered to pay $4500 in fines and restitution, forfeit the seized antlers and moose meat, as well as the rifle used in the take. 

Alaska Man score: 1.5 of 5 moose nuggets. Mr. Fulton gets a slight bump for taking his lumps without much argument. But only a slight one.

Now then, about those auroras: