It's not considered polite in Alaska to reveal a dog musher's diet secrets; the location of a prospectors gold nugget snipe hole that gets filled up again after every breakup; or a guides territory.

You also need to know there isn't a bush Alaskan that doesn't enjoy having bears for neighbors. Those of us who have lived in the wilderness totally respect our heritage of our Native Americans designating bears as sprit animals.

This is not the attitude in Los Anchorage, which really isn't Alaskan anymore. Environmental lawyers and their friends the big oilmen are the only ones that can afford those 3,000 square feet mansions looking down on what is left of the moose pasture stretching from Knik to Turnagain Arm.

The moose have actually survived a post-pipeline population explosion in the Anchorage basin very well. Witness all the newspaper photos of them bathing in backyard kiddies pools, or crossing highways under the protection of moose signs. If you missed seeing one in Denali National Park, call up the City of Anchorage animal protection officer to find out where the action is at the moment.

Even the ubiquitous caribou --much to the chagrin of Sierra Club experts living in the wilds of Beverly Hills-- are surviving the melting of permafrost caused by heating, and more importantly cooling, 6,000 square feet mansions, and six Hummer garages.

Those of us who have a front room that extends clear across a free flowing river valley, find shelter in cozy cabins easily heated by burning dead trees, instead of precious oil. This is not meant to be a political statement. I lost 500 feet of sandbar runway this year due to both an upstream glacier, and permafrost melt. I invite both Hilary Clinton (D), and John McClain (R) to come back and see for themselves that without permafrost holding surface water, Alaska will become a desert, subject to flash flooding, unable to support a fish, and in turn, a bear population.

So where was the Sierra Club when outside RIT developers were carving up bear territory so they could build these monstrosities? Yes they are pollution. What all the people looking down through their massive heat loss windows need to try and understand is what the rest of us, looking up at an ugly Texas style south fork ranch house, see.

It is an attitude that so called ecologists do not understand. That is if you kill a bear for all the wrong reasons, you do not let the meat rot away. Example the Sierra Club has taken the position not to allow a gas pipeline to be built to utilize natural gas that otherwise has to be flared into our air shed.

Such is the uniformed logic of Ivy League academics --and fellow travelers-- who spend their summer vacations in Alaska looking for name making topics they can publish, instead of perishing. I suggest, in my wordy style (having become a freelance magazine writer back in the days before MTV, and the election of presidents by sound bites) that when it comes to our bears, back off!

What I am angry about is that "environmentalists" who live on a hillside above Anchorage adjoining a state park insist on interacting with nature by insisting on staking out a bird dog on their unnatural lawns. This in bear territory. What did true Alaskans as the ultimate dog lovers in the world nickname those poor dogs? Pup-cycles!

It is well known in the north that, "a fed bear is a dead bear," meaning that once they get a taste of thrown out of imported beef ala garbage can, it is hard to peacefully coexist.

How dare a "Mr. Big," throw his weight about to get a animal control officer fired for suggesting --at the intensity required to get through arrogant stupidity-- that a garbage can not be put out the night before a scheduled pickup.

We seem to be plagued with such wild animals running loose in Alaska, resulting in a lot of innocent bears being destroyed for the greater good of mankind.

That Bozo Beach boy character from Malibu that got himself, and girlfriend, killed, a couple of years ago, caused the deaths of six of our friends. This bear loving "expert" actually made a half-way presentable documentary of his years harassing grizzlies, including reproducing mating calls, to show how harmless ursa horrililis really was.

Then he went on the David Letterman late night TV show to help an already documented bear in the closet basher teach from the Sierra Club Handbook of exploiting the wilderness for the benefit of a wealthy few. Letterman had his oversized wilderness lodge built on a game trail in Montana and was surprised when a bear tried to walk in one door, and out the other. I doubt was paid scale when appearing on film to provide yet another moment of well compensated entertainment. Letterman, I suggest you follow the precedence is an insurance company owned by a lizard at least sprung for dinner to apologize for insulting Neanderthals.

The consequence of these PAC funded selfish people is that with the exception of a few special places, as Denali National Park, Alaskans are struggling to protect the dignity of our bears by not overloading the numbers of outside viewers in love with bears for all the wrong reasons.

The famous McNiel falls has a waiting list a season or two long for professional photographers wanting to capture a shot of the ultimate salmon fisherman, as shown in foreign cruise ship advertising, setting in the water with mouth open waiting for a fish to commit suicide, rather than be caught by yours truly.

Alaska's foreign cruise ship shore tours (where 65% of the Alaska tourist dollar goes -- but that is such a long story that you will have to read Michener's Alaska to understand the truth) have a problem delivering glimpses from their cruise ship tour busses (isn't that an oxymoron?) of even a distant Toklat. Don't know the term, then don't listen to Alaska Tour Guides hired for a minimum wage out of Las Vegas.

Here is the truth from a self taught, home schooled, naturalist / photographer Alaskan. It came to Ty when watching a mother grizzly teaching her twins to learn how to swim to do the same thing we had been doing --fishing, going for the silvers, not the ducks-- that fly-in an approaching in a small boat was a pretty spectacular way to go bear viewing without stressing our fellow fisherman in a combative approach.

What could I say to that? Ty came back from this adventure with some wonderful footage. He respectively limited. And he learned that beyond the anger of having to share one fish in three, or two fish as some local streams are known, with bears, that black or brown, these fellow fisherman are truly are Alaskans on our side of the water. And that the true message of this article is to Sierra Club member David Letterman -- you are not very funny! Click.