On an early July morning I took off in a boat with my brothers Mike and Gabe, nephew Thomas, Barb and a couple other guys. We went to Devil's Elbow for a ride. We went all over these sloughs and rivers. It was getting cold and I held my nephew in my arms. He looked up at me and asked me when we were going home. I said soon and he went to sleep.

After about 2 hours of riding we finally saw a brown bear cub. It looked like a female to me. My brothers and the other guys loaded their rifles and got ready to shoot. The brown bear didn't know we were there. They shot at once and the bear fell to the ground. My brother Gabriel didn't shoot because there was something wrong with the rifle he used.

Mike brought his gun to the back of the boat and slipped on his boots. He told the other guys to put on their boots because they were going to get the bear. He stepped out and ended up sinking about a foot in the mud. He asked for the oar and Jake Isaac handed it to him. Nicholas, Jake and Mike got out and went to get the bear. It was like 100 yards from where we parked our boat. Thomas got up and looked around for the bear. He started to get excited because there was a bear. He said that the bear was dead. He wanted to go see the bear but his mom didn't let him.

It took the guys about 5 minutes to get the bear into the boat. It was smaller than I expected. Thomas kept his distance from the bear. He was more scared than he thought. After we got the bear into the boat we headed for home. The guys skinned the bear on the beach and me, Barb and Thomas went home. It was around 2:30 in the morning and I got ready for sleep.

The next day I learned that we aren't supposed to talk about the bear because it can hear us. Instead of saying, "We're going bear hunting," my brother said, "We're going for a ride."

Sally Duny

Interpreted by Gabe Duny