New Britain herald., 1928-07-28
BIG KODIAK BEAR
 fER0C|0US ENEMY
Has Keen Cunning to Trap Hunter Who Wounds Him
(By J. Nance)

stFleS Ol artlCleS on Alaska written after our trip to those waters on the chartered yacht the Westward" are interested to the greatest extent in the enormous bears which inhabit certain portions of the Aleutian islands and the Alaskan peninsula 10 the north of it. Certainly the same animals were the primary ob- lective of our trip when the four of us, Joe" Lamb, of New Britain, Dick" Topham. of Boston, "Bill" Fape. of Waterbury and the writer, set sail from Seattle into the north It seems, also, that there is a great quickening of interest in the large bears, everywhere as they have been the subject of many articles in sporting and exploring publications Of late.
 They completely overshadow the creatures of India and Africa, and rightly so. II can safely be said that they are harder 10 get at than African game, excepting in certain seasons, when they may not be shot and I believe that they will carry more lead than possibly an elephant or rhino. AS for their vicious ness-1 do not question that they are more vicious than any animal on earth, though they may not be as dangerous as some of the heavy grazing animals whose bulk carries a threat to man rather than any thing else.
 It is rather amusing to note the diverging opinions concerning kodiaks, expressed even by trappers who have seen them all of their lives, and, excepting in a general way, it is certain that the facts con- corning them are little known. Of course my theories concerning them are by no means established facts. They were collected first hand but none of us had the time or the op- portunity to make an exhaustive study of the brutes. having to de- pend upon what information we could get from ''sourdoughs" for our conclusions. rejecting what seemed unreasonable, accepting the rest. ] have stated before that 1 did not even see one, statement that l shall have to retract. l had for gotten that l did see what was un- doubtedly bear, from great dis tance, while cruising offshore in the Westward" I organized a one man expedition in an attempt to get him. but he had long been gone some where else and hunting him was a forlorn hope indeed I did see their tracks and witnessed many marks of one kind or another where they had been, from which some conclusions might be drawn.
 kodiaks Gigantic in Size
 The size of the Kodiak bear is q point of dispute. l have no way of knowing how large they grow and l doubt if any records have been care fully kept. l saw skin. destined Tor the Field Museum in Chicago. which would measure about F feet from nose to tail and nearly as much across. That skin was dried out and raw It had probably shrunk after being taken from the bear: 1t may be stretched 10 even bigger than the original size during the tanning process. The skin taken from the bear which Joe shot was about II feet in iiS raw state and the skins from the other three ob- tained by our party were about 10 feet long. One explorer mentions in his book a bear IA feet, inches long and we even heard one person tell of one that measured IS feet. He was sincere in his statement, but it seems impossible, though the ami mals undoubtedly grow to a great size. Usually the larger they are the more difficult they are to ap- proach, having accumulated cunning with their years. Inquestionably the biggest bear is still alive some where in the hills. They live at least 40 or 50 years, it is popularly believed, maybe much more. Need- less to say every inhabitant of every bay has once seen" a bear that lacked only numbers and hgures painted on it's side to make il look like a freight car.' similar to inc familiar story of the big trout that turks in every deep hole along brook. Their weights, as we'll, can rot be verified, as they are usually shot some distance from a scales ana the carcass is invariably left where the animal was killed, 1t being lhl- possible 10 get il out. Reliable eSn- mates place the weights of some of the larger ones as high as ton. -y-t. i,,1,- lar tllnp on four legs on the continent o1 North America. They are known as the largest carniNorous anlmal ln the world and are highly priz"d as trophies by sportsmen who have shot every kind of game.
 Natives Imaginative
 As 10 their Hiciousness. They are vicious. unauestionably. Niciousness however. is only relative, and ] do not mean to imply that person who chooses to travel through Alaskan country without a gun IS Ill any danger from bears, Do not E"t picture of large numbers of massive creatures roaming the hills looking for something. preferably a man. 'o bite. Not at alI mere may nave been at some time or another man attacked by a crazy bear when the human had not bothered the animal. one hears stories Of such happen incs in Alaska, possibly all of them ar" based upon one occasion ana adapted 10 if the section Of which the story is told. believe W" heard about 3o people in widely scattered localities. tell of m old man t\t had been practically scalp"d that year by bear over behind the hill near which inc person talking stood. IT we had accepted ever story at it's face value we would have believed that go mon had been scalped by go different bears that year In the bear country. We might have believed it had we heard tho