“In the fall the bears are fat and happy after all the salmon. “When they come out of hibernation is when a guy can get in trouble,” said Darian Bliss, 33, while sitting at a wooden picnic table in downtown Sitka eating lunch provided by the Salvation Army. In 2012, a bear attacked and killed a Forest Service contractor in Poison Cove, north of town, Bethune said. A man was mauled in August 2021, and survived after his friend shot the attacker. So far unhoused people have not been the victims. Bear attacks are rare, though they do occur. “And on top of that, to have bears in the spring – it certainly doesn’t make any of it easier.”Īdult males can weigh over 1,000lbs, standing as much as 10ft tall, and are easily recognizable due to the pronounced hump behind the head that shifts when they walk. “If you’re already on the edge, you can easily get pushed off up here,” Young said. “Sitka is becoming a second-home community, and people are getting priced out. “Everyone wants to be on this beautiful island, but that means that only people with a lot of money can afford a roof,” said Young, who helps unhoused people do their laundry every Monday between 8am and 11am at the Sitka laundromat. Homelessness is on the rise in the temperate rainforests of Sitka. “Listing pricing continues to trend upward.” “There is a shortage of available long-term rentals and affordable housing in the community,” said the Sitka realtor Kerri O’Toole. Median home prices have increased by 8% in the past year. Cruise ship passengers have bounced from pre-pandemic numbers of about 158,000 in 2018 to nearly 600,000 projected for summer 2023. Drawn in by the serenity of the fishing village vibe, and the seemingly endless pristine rainforest around town, visitor numbers from the continental US have snowballed. In 2020 Sitka was recognized as one of Alaska’s – and America’s – most picturesque towns, largely due to the historical buildings left from when it was under Russian control in the 19th century. Gayle Young, who co-founded the Sitka Homeless Coalition (SHC) in 2017, estimated that 35 people go without a home in Sitka – a number that increases in the summer when the weather turns, and the fishing industry kicks into gear, attracting “slime-line” laborers at the fish processors, and baristas at the pop-up food and coffee stands set up for the independent and cruise ship tourists. Although Sitka remains difficult to access – a town of 8,500 where more people own boats than cars, with just 14 miles of road – homelessness is on the rise here as well. Tent cities have become common in the metropolises of the “Lower 48”. Sitka brown bears, a cross between the polar bear and the grizzly. This is how bears and unhoused Alaskans often come into contact. The groggy creatures are “very motivated” by food, and might be attracted by any smells of more readily available meals along the way. And there are about 20 people living in the woods, according to the Sitka Homeless Coalition.Īs winter recedes and the days get longer, bears head for beaches where the greenest vegetation grows, Bethune said. There are about 1,050 brown bears on the island – just under one bear per square mile, said Stephen Bethune, a wildlife biologist at the Alaska department of fish and game. Situated on an island some 800 miles north of Seattle, unhoused people in the vicinity of Sitka face a particular peril: the Sitka brown bear, a brown bear that shows evidence of a genetic link to the polar bear. But that’s just the cost of being homeless in the woods, he decided. The bears are especially bad in the spring, before the salmon start to run, Carroll said. Another time a bear got into his “igloo” – what he called his cooler. The bear’s eyes glowed a fiery orange in the spray of his headlamp. Once he had a stare-off with a young bear at night.
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