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"Out of Nowhere"
Oil on panel, 24x36"
Price on request

The chilled air was still and the forest adjacent to the creek was silent. Not even the “Whiskey Jacks” could be heard. It was eerie as mist rose from the water ,and the morning sun struggled to warm the Alaskan scene. Suddenly the peace was broken. A single shot rang out and echoed through the silence. Birds of the forest sprang to life and zoomed in all directions parting the mist as they did so.

The shot had come from an old cabin buried deep in the woods and had been heard by no one, other than the local wildlife. The year was 1915, and in this remote part of the world the nearest camp, inhabited by prospectors, was some thirty miles away. So it was some weeks, perhaps months, before anyone discovered the decaying corpse in the cabin. The deceased man was found with a colt revolver lying on his chest, his left hand clutching the gun, which contained five cartridges and one empty shell under the hammer. The man had obviously committed suicide.

It was also very evident that he had been badly mauled by a brown bear, suffering terrible injuries as a result. Unable to get help in such a remote location, he probably succumbed to the agony and decided to end it all. It was thought that he might have been fly fishing, when a bear had attacked him without provocation. Brown bears have been known to charge humans for no apparent reason and can come “out of nowhere”. They have also been known to pursue a fisherman’s catch. The precise details of this attack are for speculation only.

In my painting I have depicted how it might have looked in those horrifying moments as the bear charged from the cover of the forest, at fifty feet per second, to take down the surprised fisherman. It may have been hungry and only after his catch, but agitated by the man's presence, chose to maul him. We do know that, desperate and badly injured, he somehow made his way back to the cabin. The man’s rifle, with a full magazine was found in the corner of his cabin; so he never got to use it, which probably means the bear did not pursue him after getting the fish and the mauling. They could find no papers on the man’s decomposed body, and he was eventually cremated along with the cabin. After being burnt to the ground, it became little more than a memory and a shadow on the grass.