I was just looking at the best calibre for Alaska post, and had to wonder how anyone ever lasted more than two days in Alaska before the invention of modern magnum calibres, and modern premium bullets. Now don't get me wrong because I am not trying to start a pissing match, but I wonder how they survived and defended themselves with cup core bullets, or if we go way back a ball of plain lead from a musket. I do however believe it would be best to use the biggest calibre you can handle, with the best premium bullet, after all it's best to hedge your bets as much as you can. How the heck did the native Alaskans stick around for so long with just spears and arrows? You have to admire any that would take a stroll around big bear country with a spear for protection.

A soft lead ball is a DEVASTATING projectile. Research the Civil War minie balls. They made military field surgery a hacksaw affair.

I don't think defence from bears was there biggest issue as we all know bears don't go around chasing humans , sure it happened but I don't think we were bears #1 prey.As for weapons and projectiles,I don't believe they took 300yd shots at game.When you hunt to survive I'm sure ethics had no bearing on the hunt so if you wounded a deer or moose and lost it you moved on.Pretty hard to compare now from then when we go out with our trucks ,boats,quads and modern clothing,and if we don't shoot a moose we can stop by the store on the way home for a steak.
They were tuff S.O.B's but life was short.

Day by Day a lot died at a lot younger ages then we are seeing now.


How did the bow hunter get by when they took over from the spear hunters ect. Improveing ones equipment and life style has been going on from the beginnig. Is it wrong and unsporting I don't belive so. I sure do enjoy a modern back pack over the old Duluth style. I love stainless Syn stocked rifles much easier to care for in the feild.


Sure I could get by with a lot of the older equipment have in the past but a nylon tent sure beats a canvas one for back packing. The new cannoes sure take a beating on the trap line and duck marsh better then my first wood and canvas one did and a heck of a lot lighter to.

Those who treasure the old stuff most likey haven't used it. I guess I am lucky enough to have grown up started out using a lot of the old suff. I really appove of the new style of boots My feet are a lot warmer and dryier now then back in the 60's.. My camping gear is a lot lighter now then back then.

How did we survive we did with what we had. I like a new stuff for the most part is better then the old stuff a lot of it works just as well or better.

I was trying to frame the argument as to which is the best caliber, to show that both sides of the you need the biggest baddest newest magnum to survive in Alaskan wilderness, and the a good 30-06 will do debate is pretty much mute. The 30-06 side has it correct when they say that people have gotten by with a lot less for hundreds of years. And I think that the magnum side has it correct when they say bring as much as you can handle, becasue if in the event that you need it you will be glad you had the extra energy. I think that if I were to go to Alaska for a hunt I would bring my .338 win mag, instead of my .270 win just because I would probably sleep better, even though I shoot the .270 somewhat more accurately.

I do really admire the hardy people of old that made a living up there in that harsh environment with their by our standards old and inadequate equipment. The truth be told I am pretty much a city boy, that loves the outdoors, but give me my modern equipment baby. I bet that most people feel the same way, like who's going to decline a nice heated camper to sleep on a bed roll out in the open when its 10 degress outside, does that make us soft? Yep. Does that make us ashamed maybe a little but not really.

In reality, most bears killed by Alaskans are killed with whichever rifle they shoot the most, or the one they have at hand at the moment. The most popular cartridges up here are the .30-06, .300WM, and .338WM, but lots of bears have been killed with smaller cartridges. The .30-06, the smallest of the three, has killed from polar bears to black bears. Lots of bears have also been killed with shotguns, too. Last year at least one brown was killed with a shotgun (in a hotel's hallway), and a couple of weeks ago another was killed with a shotgun. It walked after biting the shooter on the leg, but it died a few yards away after the shot.

Sometimes it does not matter what gun is used, but sometimes even a .22 LR can drop a bear. There was a case where some hunters were in their tent when a brown got right by the door, and one of them shot the bear at point blank by the neck and jaw, then another time through the chest, and the bear ran. The guide, who was at another tent nearby, ran after and killed the bear several yards from the tents.

There was a bear hunting story at another forum, and according to this guy he had gone bear hunting with a friend. His friend was using a .375 H&H, and he had a .338WM. Both of them shot the same bear several times, but it ran into the brush. They waited for awhile before tracking the bear, and when the moved ahead following the blood trail, the bear charged them. Again they started shooting at the bear, finally killing it. According to the hunter, he would never use any .338's nor .375's for bear hunting again.

There was a guy near Anchorage who killed three of four bears as they charged. The first bear ran, then he killed the three bears with his .338WM and 250-grain Nosler bullets. He used 5 rounds, and the last of these was after having to reload his rifle. He didn't have time to aim since the bear was almost on top of him, but he shot it through the brain.

If you read the book "Some Bears Kill" by Larry Kaniut, you will see at least one of the stories I have told you here. The book has at least 16 accounts of Alaskans who managed to survive bear attacks, and some didn't even used guns.

So should someone bring a gun loaded for Bears, or just bring the gun most appropriate for the type of game they would be shooting? I know the chances of being attacked by a bear a extremely slim, but it would be my luck to be one of the guys that brought a 270 to a bear fight that I thought was going to be a deer fight.

You need to read Jimmy Huntington's book "On the Edge of Nowhere". He was taught to kill denned black bears with an axe by his father. You prodded them to come out and hit them on the head. Had quite an experience when 3 bears came out of the den instead of one.

Tech, you will probably get several answers on this subject, and here is mine: In Alaska, regardless of what game (or bird) you are hunting, there is always the possibility of a bear encounter, but bear encounters, however, are rare.

Hunters from the Lower-48 who decide to hunt up here may want to bring the biggest rifle they can shoot well, and also reliable ammo loaded with controlled-expansion bullets not softer than at least a Nosler Partition. Some of this ammo can be purchased locally, but it may be more expensive than ammo purchased in the Lower-48. Such a hunter will be paying quite a high price for a moose or bear hunt, since some require the use of a guide (grizzly/brown, for example). Most of the game up here is hunted with those cartridges I listed in previous posts, but lots of hunters from the Lower-48 bring huge guns with them.

In my view, any rifle one can shoot well from a .30-06 and up, should work on Alaska game. If you desire to mostly hunt the big bears, then bring a rifle from a .300WM and up, but one you can shoot well. More than likely the guide won't like you to shoot from afar, and certainly he or she won't like you to injure the bear with a bad shot, so shot placement is very important and desired by a guide.

My "all around" cartridge is the .338WM, but I mostly hunt moose in September. I don't hunt bears, but I load my rifle with ammo that have tough bullets to penetrate deep and break bone. I have only recovered 2 bullets from the moose I have killed, since most pass right through. I have shot most of my moose with FS bullets, one moose with a 250-grain Nosler, and the last one (last year) with a 250-grain A-Frame. The 230-grain FS can break both shoulder bones on moose. I have done that at 200 yards. I imagine that a 225-grain Barnes X can do the same.

You guys would be surprised at how many natives still use the .30-30 Winchester.



Those two guys using the .338 and the .375 magnums were obviously not hitting the vitals. That is a classic case of poor marksmanship. Too many people think that a bigger rifle will make up for poor marksmanship skills. Slobs!



One should practice stalking so they can get close to their prey. They should also practice their marksmanship so they can put that bullet right into the vitals.

I'd consider myself a pretty reasonable shot, but having been there and seen that (and cleaning myself afterwards), I'd counter argue that neither stalking skills nor most tenets of marksmanship have any relevance when a very BIG, very PO'd Brown Bear explodes out of the brush a few feet away. I know too all the jazz about caution, alertness, etc., but sometimes that too doesn't seem to count for much. One of more than a few personal examples (I remember this one real well!): moose hunting last fall on a float trip on the Peninsula. Four guys on our second day in one camp. We'd set up tents, cooked, fished, climbed hills looking for moose, and generally thrashed around in that very small spot for a couple days. On the second night, I walked a few feet (~30 yards) off to the "commode", which I'd used the day before, and the biggest bear in the world (or so it seemed) gave a grunt, and ran ~10 yards towards me. Actually, "run" doesn't really describe the motion of this thing and it took way less time than it takes me to type one of these words. I operated the bolt and chambered a round and leveled off, way faster than what I do at the range. Point of all this: I'm sure you can put a sneak on one and kill it with a little gun, and obvious lots have, but when they're jumping outa trees (seemingly) and mad, and you've got maybe a second or two, I'd recommend the biggest rifle around that you can use to hopefully break it down if the shot is not "perfect". Doing a snap shot under stress is in a seond or less is not the same thing as sight picture, breath let half out, slowly squeeze etc. Too, I've seen a couple hit seemingly real well (including one of mine with a .375)still get legs, at least for a few seconds and they can cover lots of ground in that time. Too, I've not done this yet, but would prefer a cannon or larger if I have to crawl into the alders after one shot by a marksman with a whitetail rifle. Just my 2 cents.

I used to spend six months every year working, usually alone, in Grizzly country in B.C. for the B.C. Forest Service and I have been in at the death of a number of Grizzlies, mostly the smaller, interior type. I have also been in Alaska and seen some of the coastal bears up close.

Last autumn, I discussed this very topic with a guide in north-eastern B.C. who has decades of experience and was born and brought up in the bush, miles off the Alaska Hiway, he has shot 51 Grizzlies and has the photos to prove it. He just laughed when I mentioned the .30-06 as a Grizzly rifle and, although I have seen Grizzlies shot stone dead with one when unaware of the hunter, I would never use one as a protection gun.

When in thick bush, in Grizzly country, my smallest rifle is one of my .338s and I prefer my .375H&H rifles; I have, btw, known "natives" who have killed Grizzlies with .30-30s and known of a number who were killed by said bears while using such rifles. I think that a person should carry and use a truely adequate rifle so you can sort out your own problems as you cannot always rely on someone else to defend you. Self-reliance is an essential part of being safe and comfortable in the bush.

They used to light fires with a flint and striker in the past. How many folks have upgraded to a lighter? How many of the old timers really liked using a flint, especially when they were really cold, and wanted a fire right now?

Same goes for using deer rifles against bears. They work after a fassion, but they were never a good choice in the past, and aren't a good choice now. Folks used what they had, but it didn't mean they thought it was a good choice.

As far as "native" bear guns, an Aleut friend from Kodiak said they used to carry a 10 gauge and a 458 win mag. Some folks adapt to superior technology, some folks don't.

In the old days, the hunters were useing the latest thing on the market! It just happens they didn't have any other choice! I submit, Louis & Clark would have dearly loved to have had a 375 H&H Mauser bolt rifle, when they encountered the Grizz along thier path to the Pacific! Those bears were a mere slip of the ones along the coast of Alaska. I'm sure you could trade any rusty 338 rifle for an Inuite's brand new 30-30 today, and he would already have one, if he could afford it.



In the day of the spear, the spear was ENOUGH to kill a Brownie, if you were lucky! The problem is a lot of indians were not LUCKY! The life expectantcy has risen by leaps and bounds since, the day of the speer, and all that gain was not because of modern medicine!



I hunt everything in Alaska with an FN Mauser 375 H&H, with 300 gr premium bullets. It will kill Caribou as well as anything I've ever used, and it will do a much better job on a coastal Brown bear, than any deer rifle ever made. If you want to know how small a 375 H&H really is, let a big Brownie Boar start advanceing on you from 30 yds! I can tell you from personal experience, it will feel like a Daisey BB gun, and does not inspire a feeling of superiority. In the example given here, you would not want to trade the 375 for any 30-06, I assure you!

In SE AK the Tlingit had their camps and villages mostly located when there weren’t a lot of Browns.

They did not do much bear hunting, as they don't today.

Brown Bear is "grandfather".

There was however the Angoon (Admiralty Island) Tlingit that settled there some time in history. They used the Brown Bear as protection as the other Tlingits from the region would not go there because of the high Brown Bear population. The Angoon people learned to live with the Browns, still do today. Other Natives from the region still call the Angoon people "the superstitious ones".

What ever in the world give you the idea that the Tlinget never hunted brown bears? I grew up in Haines, from the forties on, near Klukwan, which was once one of the largest Tlinget towns. Every village from the southern tip of Admiralty Island, and every camp, was situated where the brown bear were the thickest. They hunted them incessantly and brown and black bear meat was a large and important part of their diet. I grew up and went to school, worked and hunted with them, and ate at their table, and my two oldest daughters are Tlinget, as are my two grandsons.
Right now I can take you to talk to Tlingets who have hunted brown bear, at least six Chilkats from Klukwan, who can tell you hair-raising tales of hunting brownies in the old Indian way, by setting up an ambush by salmon streams and trails, in the darkest part of the night, three or four men, blazing away at ranges of two to six feet, total surprise, overwhelming the bear with firepower, close, can't miss range. Safer that way, Albert Paddy told me once, in the day time the bear can see you and is always alert. Hunting bear in the dark was a passion with Dick Hotch, his son Clifford lives here in Juneau and can talk about hunting with his dad in his teens. I knew old Robert Zuboff from Angoon, and Charles Jack from Hoonah. They hunted with the old short Tlinget bear spears at night. These men were held in very high esteem. Oh by the way, this method of bear hunting was universal by all the natives who lived in brownie country. Up the coast and all the way down the Alaska Peninsula, and down the Asian Coast to the Amur and Sakalin Island.

Tech, to answer your question about the natives that lived daily with the brown bears, to begin with, they did every thing pretty much in a group effort. In fact every thing had to be done with group, clan tribal cooperation, very little was done by solitary effort, and that only very carefully. It took a group of men to handle the larger dugout canoes, to fish, to drive hunt, gather firewood, pack trade goods over the mountains to the interior tribes, the women picked berries in large parties,etc. Even the largest orneriest bear can count the odds. I read or seen on the animal channel that one 400 lb lion won't take on 10 hyenas with an aggregate weight of 7 or 800 pounds and vice a versa. I think most animals are that way. I watched helplessly from my fishing boat at anchor in Basket Bay, on Chichagof Island, a confrontation between a brownie and 8 crewmen on the beach, not a gun amongst them. The bear bluff charged and chased one guy who was a little ways from the others, but when the guy rejoined the group the bear skidded to a halt and backed off, giving them a chance to get in their skiffs and leave. None of us do well with natural superstitious tendencys when all alone, and years ago this was much stronger of an instinct, a primeval survival instinct. Just like we got by the cemetary in the dark by going home in a gang from the movie, the old time native got by the brown bear by traveling in a group. And I suppose if push came to shove, when a brownie was chewing on one guy, the other 3 or 4 could put a whole lot of spear holes in him real quick like. Well, to live here they had to develop ways of dealing with things. and like anywhere else in the world, in like times, life was shorter. If I had to make an educated guess, though, that other instinct of man, the macho need of a young guy to prove his manhood and bravery, if not his good sense, cut more lives shorter than brown bear and lion attacks.