This piece is not about the politics of bears, but about the philosophy of bears. This is not to debate whether or not the Black Hills has a bear population, but simply to accept the possibility. How does this prospect affect our interaction with the outdoors?

 

Should the chance of sighting a bear keep us from enjoying the forest? No, it should not. It’s possible that bears could add to our outdoors experience. Being in nature, the forest, should not be as tame of an experience as sitting in your front yard. Knowledge of bears makes the forest seem wilder, more apart, than our day-to-day existence.

 

Many states have resident bears, New York, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota and Montana, to name a few. Like South Dakota, those states have areas of state and/or national forest in which thousands of people camp, hike, boat, hunt, and fish. They know there are bears, they expect bears; they act accordingly. There are precautions people take when they spend time in bear country, which do not detract from the outdoors experience. The forest, the river, the mountain, the bear are bigger than you. You are not the center of universe; it doesn’t hurt to realize that once in awhile.

 

The celebrated wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino wrote this passage about the existence of bears in Alaska:

“If there wasn’t a single bear in all of Alaska . . . I could hike through the mountains with complete peace of mind. I could camp without worry. But what a dull place Alaska would be!

“Here people share the land with bears. There is a certain wariness between people and bears. And that wariness forces upon us a valuable sense of humility. . . And how precious these places, these bears are.”

 

A bear population in the Black Hills need not send us fleeing indoors; it should send us outdoors into a forest ripe with possibility.

 

 

*Passage cited from The Blue Bear by Lynn Schooler.