Alaska Wildlife just passing through our “Little Piece of Heaven” is very exciting as we are able to recognize and name our neighbors that live in the area. Through out the year many of the animals and birds that frequent the property seem not to fear us. They give birth to their young, thrive, nest and play on this property safely.
But on February 1st, 2021 we had a rare Alaska wildlife visitor pass through and left perfect signs all the way across our property. It was 18 degrees below zero with fres
h snow on the ground from the day before. First thing in the morning under a blue sky, I was looking from our gorgeous view windows in the warmth of our Eagle’s Eye Vacation Rentals’ cabin. I wondered to myself who would want to walk through the property so early in the dark hours of morning as I gazed down onto the Kenai River. The foot prints looked like human boot markings from afar. I wanted to look closer so I grabbed the nearby binoculars to see better. To my surprise, those tracks were not human, but super-large grizzly bear tracks instead.
We know that we have bears in the area, but it’s fairly rare to see one on the property as they do like to stay out o
f sight. My first thought question was what is a huge bear doing here at this time of the year when it should be hibernating? And then the thought passed through my head that this was a very dangerous bear hunting for food. When you live in Alaska, we must not forget to look both ways and listen intentionally to the sounds around us.
I had to get a close look and check the property for danger and our neighbors’ safety. As it turned out, after I took a walk through 3 feet of untouched snow to the river, we had our first visitor to fish our Kenai River banks for the dead 
frozen salmon carcasses. He was very successful that chilly morning. This is not a normal Alaska wildlife sighting by any means, you will probably never see a bear on our property during the hours of the day with humans about making noise, but on this crisp, cold winter morning without people milling about it was a beautiful sight to see.
