PHOTOS: Outside the Interior Alaska community of Delta Junction, firefighters have been working to contain wildfires for weeks. And as if that job wasn’t hard enough, some crews are having trouble with bears. Ben Gage, a spokesperson for the crews working around Delta Junction, says he’s gotten reports of bears wandering through camps and even into one unlucky firefighter’s tent. So far, nobody has gotten hurt.
“It’s sometimes hard to completely get the smell off you when you’re working outside,” Gage said. “Even the smell of bar oil or fire on you, the smell of your clothes from working in the day.” That’s right. Bears like bar oil โ the stuff firefighters use to lubricate their chainsaws. Sometimes, big, furry problems call for big, furry solutions. Enter Mardy and Sky, a mother-daughter team of Karelian bear dogs. Late last month, the two big, fluffy, black-and-white dogs joined about 50 firefighters at a camp near the roughly 23,000 acre Twelvemile Fire, southeast of Delta Junction.
Their handler, Nils Pedersen, says the dogs’ passing resemblance to real bears isn’t what gives the breed its name. “These are big game hunting dogs from Finland that were traditionally used to hunt brown bear and moose,” he said. Pedersen directs the Wind River Bear Institute, a nonprofit that offers non-lethal solutions to complicated human-wildlife conflicts. The organization advises on strategies like hiding bear attractants and using electric fences and bear spray.
