He lived way out here, where it was just him and Alaska and to hell with everyone else. Here he was alone but never lonely, didn’t even know what loneliness was. Soon everyone would be gone for the [#image: /photos/54cbf812998d4de83ba39db4]year, even the grizzlies. Days earlier, the place had crawled with bears, splashing through the streams, flipping boulders like dice. Then the creeks slowed, the salmon run thinned, and they were gone.

As they did every October, the bears were heading deeper inland, toward their dark mountain lairs, where they would sleep through the long winter. Only the stragglers remained here in Kaflia Bay, scrapping for what little food remained, hoping against hope that there was still a salmon or two in the creeks, or a few unpicked elderberries to be had somewhere between here and the mountains, among them a forbidding peak known as the Devil’s Desk.

It was raining now and foggy. Slate-gray storm clouds hung low over the bay. Normally the water was so clear he could see straight to the rocky riverbed. But with the gloom and the rain swirling in sheets, the water was gray, churning. His hair was icy, almost crystalline, and his coat was soaked. He had a toothache, and he was tired. Even by his spotty hygienic standards—years in the Alaskan wilderness do that to you—he was filthy.

He was 28 but looked older. Anyone who says nature is the fountain of youth hasn’t lived in the wilds of southwestern Alaska, where winters test even those genetically adapted to endure them—from the indigenous peoples, the Alutiiq, to the caribou and the killer whales, the moose and the wolves, the seals and the sea lions.

But especially the bears. For centuries, this corner of the subarctic has been known as Grizzly Country. Of the estimated 32,000 grizzlies left in the United States, around 31,000 live in Alaska, where they are, in more ways than one, larger than life. Known as Kodiaks, the bears on Kodiak Island are easily the world’s largest, standing upwards of 11 feet tall and weighing as much as 1,500 pounds—the size of three Bengal tigers, five mountain gorillas, or eight men.

Even those who shoot them agree that grizzlies are wonders to behold, possessed of uncommon beauty and human-like qualities that border on the mystical. For centuries, local tribes saw them as gods or shamans. It was a worship born of fear, since grizzlies are the world’s largest terrestrial predators, dominating the food chain with their power and size, speed and cunning. Capable of dragging a moose up a mountain and devouring it entirely, a grizzly eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants—including, at times, other grizzlies.

He knew this better than most, having seen it happen year after year to victims bigger and tougher than he was. As the sun disappeared, he moved slowly through the rain, shambling in that ungainly way of his. That’s when he saw them, lurking low and quiet in the alders. There were two with strikingly similar features: both adults, both weather-beaten, both golden. He’d seen them before, especially the male, who until recently had traveled alone—had been a “rogue.”

Now, it seemed, the male had taken a mate, a small, pretty female. Together they nested in a dense thicket of alders, near some of the age-old bear trails that crisscross Kaflia. He approached them cautiously. Inside their carefully constructed habitat, the golden pair stirred. He stood upright, inhaling the cold air, eyes straining to see. At this point, instinct took over and everything became a blur. It was October in Alaska, and he was a bear.