I work in the wilderness tourism business, an industry described by many names, including adventure tourism, green tourism, and sustainable tourism. Ecotourism is my least favorite of the tags applied to my line of work.

Please don’t misunderstand. I believe when you work in the wilderness, you must run a clean operation and impact the environment, the wildlife, the native plants, and the local people as little as possible. We try to do everything we can in our operation to minimize our impact and leave no trace. Ecotourism, though, is a label which has become synonymous with “environmentally beneficial.” A guest who books a stay at an ecotourism lodge often believes she is staying someplace where she will not impact the environment at all. After spending most of my life running our lodge with my husband and working as a wilderness guide, I believe it is impossible to walk into the woods without leaving a trace and making an impact. The real problem occurs when a guide labels his business as ecotourism either because he thinks it is so clean it makes no impact, or because he understands the label will attract more clients.

I don’t believe many businesses in the United States can accurately be labeled ecotourism because the term has a lengthy, specific definition, and to be an ecotourism business, you must meet each criterion of the meaning. One of the stipulations an ecotourism business must follow is to invest money in environmental and cultural programs sponsored by the government. Countries like Costa Rica actively support and work with ecotourism lodges. The U.S. government does not.

Definitions aside, though, how can we become better stewards of our environment if we believe we do nothing wrong? When we hike up a stream with our guests to watch bears, and we accidentally spook a sow with two small cubs, causing them to run off into the woods, we make sure our guests know we scared the bears, and we have no way to measure our impact on them. We’re not perfect. We do the best we can, but we leave footprints in the woods.

The following story describes our worst day of bear viewing in the last 35 years. It was a day we likely killed three bears. This event impacted my life forever, and I never forget I am an unwelcome visitor when I step into the Kodiak wilderness. The best I can do is walk softly and stay no longer than necessary.

This tragic tale occurred in the mid-1980s during our summer bear-viewing trips when my husband, Mike, and I were walking down the beach with five guests.  We had finished bear viewing for the day, and since there were no bears in sight, we talked quietly among ourselves.  Mike heard a noise and looked up on the hill above the beach where he saw a sow watching us.  He immediately knew the bear was more than curious; she was agitated.  She popped her teeth, and foam frothed from her mouth.  Mike yelled at us to move back, and although I had never been frightened around bears, the sound of his voice made my legs tremble.  I repeated his orders to our guests, who were trying to understand the situation.

Mike yelled at the sow again and then pumped a shell into the chamber of the .375 H&H rifle he carries on our bear-viewing trips. Usually, the loud, metallic sound of injecting a shell into the chamber of the rifle is enough to deter curious bears, but it did not affect this bear.  She stomped her front feet on the bank and lunged from side to side, while she continued to foam at the mouth.  Mike fired once into the dirt in front of her, a maneuver sure to make her flee.  She stood still for only a moment and then flew down the cliff straight toward Mike.  He shot again, and she dropped six feet from him.

At the time, I didn’t realize what an impact those few seconds would have on the rest of my life.  All I felt then was grief and sympathy for the sow’s two yearling cubs.  Mike was so distraught over the experience, he considered never taking another bear viewer into the woods, but he knew brown bears rarely charge humans, and this probably never would happen to us again.

The following day, Mike skinned the bear and turned the hide over to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  From examining one of her teeth, a biologist determined the sow was 23 years old. Both the biologist and Mike believed with her advanced age, her senses might have been impaired.  She was probably asleep, and when she awoke and heard us walking down the beach, she considered us an immediate threat to her cubs and didn’t hesitate to charge.

The biologist gave the cubs a 50% chance of surviving through the winter.  Not only would they have to avoid being killed by larger bears, but they’d need to build up their fat reserves, find or dig a den, and live through hibernation without the aid of their mother.

For many years after the sow charged us, I dreaded our bear viewing trips, and I was wary of sows and cubs.  Looking back, I now believe I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and it took a long time to overcome the trauma of that sunny, July afternoon.  The experience heightened my respect for the speed and power of Kodiak bears, and it was also a crash course in understanding the differences between a bluff charge, often seen with sub-adult bears, and the real thing.

I no longer worry about getting close to brown bears.  On the contrary, I love sitting on a riverbank watching bears chase salmon, and seeing a sow interact with her cubs is a special treat, but after the tragic July encounter so many years ago, I will never again be complacent around brown bears. I know I leave footprints when I walk in the woods.