Scary Bear Attacks Podcast

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the interior of northern British Columbia, Canada, near a small town called Gitanyow. The mountains tower to above a mile high at their peaks, and the valleys between them are broad and heavily forested. In most of these broad valleys, tangles of willow, alder and tall grasses screen deer, elk, moose and woodland caribou. You may even see American Bison browsing on grasses munching their way across meadows. Predators including cougars, wolves, coyotes and black and brown bears stalk the riparian zones to surprise their prey. It is...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Thank you for helping us reach 70,000 subscribers! Today’s episode takes us to frozen north of Yukon Territory, Canada, near a small town called Mayo. It lies about 250 north of Whitehorse and is surrounded by wilderness as is the homerange of the native tribe known as the Big River People.

This area has a subarctic climate and temperatures range from -80 degrees fahrenheit in winter, which lasts about 6 months, to 97 degrees in the summer, with extremely short spring and fall seasons. This area receives about 12 inches of precipitation per year, but mo...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Southern Siberia to a province in the Russian Federation called Tuva. This area is poverty stricken and is renown for its crime and drug abuse. The temperature here can drop to -80 degrees in the winter and over 100 degrees in the summer. The Siberian Larch, Laurel leaf Poplar and the Scots Pine are among the tallest trees here and Kites and Kestrels hunt the Chee and tufted hair grasses. A few of the common animals here are wolves, snow leopards, mountain sheep, antelope, reindeer and brown bears. It...

Thank you for watching Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to The Nalchin Public Use Area just northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. This part of the state consists of steep mountains covered in fir and pine stands and forests, as well as birch trees, alder and willow bushes crowding the valley floors. There are hillsides that are covered with shorter bushes as well, but most of the area is forest. The animals here are the typical Alaskan fauna, including moose, brown and black bear, as well as an abundance of fur bearers and birds.

I was hu...

It was the evening of another warm summer day in New Hampshire. The year was 1785 and like nearly every other frontier family the Leach’s were still working hard to finish up their chores. Bradley Leach told his 8 year old son to take his horse up to the pasture and bring the cows back down for the evening. Jonathan was a smart boy and always did his chores and Bradley was not worried about this last task remaining on the pairs chore list.

Jonathan grabbed the reins of his trusted horse, Mr. Whipple, and started up the di...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the Two Oceans Pass area located in the Teton Wilderness area just south of Yellowstone park near Cody, Wyoming. This area features majestic granite peaks biting into the sky above lush forest of fir and pine. It receives a lot of snowfall each winter which keeps the undergrowth thick to hide the elk, deer and moose that tiptoe along the meadows and streams in the valleys. Cougars, wolves and black and brown bears round out the dominant predators that stalk the hillsides. Drawing skiers, horseback riders, trail hi...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the hot and dry mountains around Caliente, California. The arid climate features mountains and hills sparsely covered in dry grasses, low growing desert bushes like Big Berry and Common Manzanita, Fremont Cottonwood and the Blue Oak tree. The ground cover is seasonally adorned with California Fuchsia, Western Columbine and Deer Grass plus many more. The animals of the area include the coyotes, jackrabbits, cottontail rabbits, mule deer and bobcats. The more dangerous inhabitants of this area include black bears. On the higher slopes of the desert mountains, fo...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us back to familiar territory. If you remember our episode on the Sankebetsu Bear Attack you may remember the Japanese Island of Hokkaido. That episode was centered on a remote village that involved one of the worst bear attacks in world history. Today’s episode is located in the prefecture’s largest city, Sapporo. This city has over 2 million residents and features an airport as well as a military base for Japanese National Defense Forces. The city is a typical urban landscape in composition but more interestingly, just outside the ci...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to The wilderness just north of Columbia Falls, Montana. The terrain of this area features valleys at around 3500 feet in elevation with nearby hills reaching near the mile high mark of 4500 to 5000 feet. The Trumbull Canyon Road is an excellent jumping off spot for anyone wanting to get into the more remote areas for hunting, hiking or general adventuring. In this area there are nearly uninterrupted forests of pine and fir trees that stretch for miles. Along the creek bottoms willow and alder bushes screen and shelter the wh...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the wild northern Rockies near Cariboo in British Columbia, Canada. The granite mountains soar above the valley floor, which is around 3700 feet in elevation. The mountain ranges here form a barrier that traps incoming moisture from the Pacific Ocean. In this area fog and snow are common for much of the year. Because of the geography, the valleys between the mountains are lush and green. A ground level canopy of alder, berry bushes and wildflowers like yellow glacier lily and fireweed decorate the scenery. Pine and fir tr...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the nearly impenetrable hardwood forests of the Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. The landscape here was shaped by untold eons of glacial activity leaving behind rolling landscapes, small cliffs and rich soils. Beavers bob along in the lakes and ponds as they chew branches to build their lodges. The dense forests of Sugar Maple, Hemlock and Yellow Birch hide moose and whitetail deer and the common predators of the area are wolves and black bear. It is this setting that today’s episode takes place.

In...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us back to the Shoshone Forest to the Bobcat-Houlihan Trailhead about 28 miles southwest of Cody, Wyoming and 24 miles east of the Yellowstone National Park boundary. If this area sounds familiar, our last two episodes were set there. The broad valley of the south fork of the Shoshone River rises around 1500 ft to the mesa’s and steep mountains to the north. When I think of grizzly bears I think of remote forests and rugged peaks, but this area features cliffs and sage brush. Not exactly grizzly territory, but then agai...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the old west setting of the high canyons and mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. There was a Spanish settlement there by the name of Colonia Pacheco. This area comprises three distinct geographical areas. An extinct volcano named Cerro Mohinora is the highest mountain in the Sierra Madre Occidental ranges which makes up ⅓ of the area. The rest is plains and desert. The animal life includes While tailed deer, wolves, bears and cougars plus smaller animals like bats, foxes and raccoons.The native plants include Lechuguilla, Mesquite, Guayule and ocot...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the remote and rugged mountains just north of Yellowstone National Park in southwest Montana. The granite peaks soar over valleys stuffed with plants and animals. Each season brings its own state of energy as fall season transitions to a slower time. Pines, fir trees and Aspen trees markout the horizon and willow, blueberry and buckbrush hug the lay of the land. In this area, elk, moose, deer, sheep and goats adorn the hillside and black and brown bear, cougar, wolves, coyotes and bobcat stalk the shadows.

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Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Waugh Mountain just north of Cotopaxi, Colorado around 80 miles south of Denver. This particular part of the Pike and San Isabel National Forest displays steep and rugged mountains covered in pine and fir trees predominantly. There are pockets of willow, aspen and various berry bushes wherever water is present. The mountains are packed with deer and elk but authorities are uncertain about just how many black bears live in the state of Colorado.

Colin McClelland was from a very outdoorsy family. His father was a li...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Arviat, Nunavut Island, to a place called Sentry Island in Hudson Bay in northeast Canada. This wind swept land of rock and ice is a nearly inhospitable place but indigenous people have scraped out a living here for untold eons. When the ice melts in the summer, the natives can fish, but in the brutal winters, ice covers the water and land, and the humans frequently come face to face with the worlds largest bear species in competition for a common food source, seals. The polar bear is...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the remote and nearly untouched Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve with its iconic glaciers and fjords. The park is located in SouthEast Alaska along the coast and presents some of the most beautiful scenery on earth. The forests are lush and green with giant pines and all kinds of berry bushes. The bay itself lies to the east of where our events that we are discussing today occurred. This area is remote and rugged. Help is not close nor is it fast in response. Most people who tr...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the majestic Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the Navajo River. The San Juan Wilderness area is a rugged combination of forest and granite peaks ranging in elevation from around 8,000 ft to about 12,000 feet. The valleys flush with deer, elk, coyotes and black bear, but the ecological niche of the grizzly now goes unfilled. On the eve of September 23rd, 1979 Colorado native and hunting guide, Ed Wiseman slips quietly through the forest as the day of elk hunting winds down. Ed thinks of himself as a bit of...

The year was 1924 and fur trapper Jess Sethington had decided to make his way up to the headwaters of the Unuk River without the companionship of another person. People venturing into the isolated backcountry of Alaska have an unwritten rule and that was to never go alone, but Jess didn’t heed that advice. He was very experienced after all, and his trip was not supposed to be long in duration. Jess didn’t return when scheduled and four of his woodsman friends began the tracking process. They located several of his campsites and then all signs of the trap...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountain in Central California. The Sierra Nevada’s are one of the highest and most prestigious mountain ranges in the world and serve as the spine of California running from the Mexican border all the way to around the Oregon border. The giant granite peaks seem to touch the sky and host hundreds of miles of largely uninterrupted fur and pine forests. At the time of our incident there were no highways crossing the high mountain passes and assistance was often too far away...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! This weekend's episode takes us to familiar territory. If you have watched our previous stories on Olga Moskalyova, Vitaly Nikolyenko and Alexey Ivanovski then you will know we are talking about the Russian Far East. We are returning to Kamchatka to a beautiful place called Lake Kurilskoye. As you can see by our map, we are now near the center of 5 cases regarding attacks we have previously discussed. The Sankebetsu Bear attack on Hokkaido, The Kinshur Island attack, the Olga Moskalyev attack, the Vitaly Nikolenko attack and the topic of today's episode. If...

Welcome back to scary bear attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the remote Siberian wilderness. A beautiful and wild place that we have visited in prior episodes, the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia’s far east. The area is known as the Kronotsky Wildlife Reserve not far from where our episode discussing Igor and Olga Moskalyova occurred. The geography of the peninsula is thick with alder and other scrub brush as well as groves of pine, fir and birch trees. Vitaly Nikolayenko was a 66 year old bear researcher. He was a self taught naturalist and wildlife photographer. This is his...

My family was held captive and harassed all night by a young male black bear that no one could scare off or catch.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today's episode takes us to Santa Monica, California. Yes! I am not joking. Not the town of today but a century and a half ago. Before the freeways and high rise buildings of today, Santa Monica was a seaside bear haven and yes, some of those bears were Grizzly bears.

In 1853 the area may have had about 100 people and was starting to be farmed by Mexican settlers. The local plant life was an assortment as diverse as box elder and maple to salt bush and manzanita. The temperatures were very steady...

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the beautiful and scenic mountain environs in the Flathead National Forest in Northwestern Montana. The rugged Rocky Mountains tower near the horizon and Flathead Lake shimmers in the sunlight. The mountains are predominantly granite in composition and are covered in pine, fir and aspen trees.

The Outer Trail of the Green Gate Trail System is an exciting network of trails that hikers and mountain bikers traverse frequently this time of year. The trail is right at 10 miles long and is an easy ride for mountain bi...

Father and daughter hike through Glacier National Park and have to jump off of cliffs to save their lives.

Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks. Today’s episode takes us to the prestigious Rocky Mountains, to a little town called Ouray. The rigorous landscape consists of steep, boulder strewn mountainsides with lush pine forests, the perfect environment for sightseeing, and black bears. Water resources are abundant as well deer, elk and various berry bushes and nuts for bears to eat and nurture their offspring from. A popular tourist destination, the Colorado backcountry is replete with people. Hikers, skiers, hunters and campers frequently crowd the primitive areas bears prefer to live in, so sightings and confrontations are a possibility. Ed...

A short on the recent bear attack on Craig Cloutre just north of Yellowstone National Park.

John Wallace was mauled and eaten by a grizzly bear that previously killed Brian Matayoshi but was tagged and released.

Olga Moskalyova called her mom while four bears ate her alive.

Aydee simply took her dog out for a walk and was attacked by a black bear sow who had three cubs with her. A bear in a neighborhood is never a good thing.

Brian Matayoski were attacked by a grizzly bear while hiking in Yellowstone National Park. Their harrowing story is narrated for your pleasure.

Jay Reeves was photographing in the back country of Alaska and was pulled from his tent at night. His harrowing story is told in this episode.