The Bears of Porter Valley
A ranger job in north Georgia turned him into a keen watcher of black bears. Then, two friends wanted to come bear hunting. No bears fell, but lessons were learned.
The valley hid behind a wall of mighty poplars. Its blacktop drive curved off the highway like a nervous snake. The drive met a grassy plain, which resembled the place between ridges on the bottom of an apple. Three ridges hugged the little valley. Its head met the very edge of the southern Blue Ridge; its feet rested on Georgia Highway 19.
Pavement turned to gravel beyond a string of small cabins and two circular ponds. Someone’s dream of a cabin-rental paradise had been laid to rest here. The cabins were built in the 1990s, but the damned trees kept the mountain views away until winter. The vacation rentals never came. The cabins were sold individually to Atlanta families, who occasionally showed up on weekends. Otherwise, the place remained people-less.
As far as I could tell, the valley had no name. A creek called Pruitt Creek ran through its belly. Cedar Mountain rose directly west, Columbia Mountain towered to the northwest. We called the place Pruitt Valley after the creek, but that didn’t fit. The greater area was known as Porter Springs, named for the spring associated with the legend of Trahlyta. A spring of magic waters, many had said. We settled on calling the place Porter Valley, often wondering what Cherokee people called this place before our government removed them in the 1830s.
After college, most of my friends moved to the city. I moved to the valley, 10 miles north of Dahlonega, among the trees. I didn’t care about money; I wanted only to be a good naturalist. Having grown up in flat southeast Georgia, the Blue Ridge shone holy and exotic in my eyes. I took a job as an interpretive ranger at a nearby state park and rented one of those small cabins, a one-room loft, with my girlfriend, Audrey. We read poetry together, experimented with mind-altering substances, and even on sober days, gawked at all the beauty of the place. We took long walks in the woods with our hound, Josie.
~~~
The road that ran through the valley met national forest land a few hundred yards from our little adobe. To the north lay vast wilderness, tree-covered mountains all the way to North Carolina. Our cabin was a portal to another dimension, to a land of native and settler lore, legends of monsters and mad medicine women, frogs as big as houses, true histories of greed, bloodshed, and bitterness, plants, animals, and seasons unknown to me.
Winter in the valley shocked my body. Audrey had grown up in the mountains near Jasper, Georgia, but my only experience with snow had been the blizzard of ’93. A light dusting lasted half a day in my mother’s yard that year. Porter Valley got cold in November and stayed cold. Average lows ran below freezing until spring. In south Georgia, we’d play football in shorts at Christmastime, covered in sweat.
"I loved slipping into the woods alone, armed only with binoculars, in search of the bears' elusive yet unmistakable forms. Most times I went searching, I did not find them. But like Thoreau said of fishing, it’s not the fish we’re after."
When snow fell on the valley, it stuck. The place shivered like a beaten dog. Gnarly heads of pipsissewa succumbed to ice. Squirrels ceased their limb-hopping and used their bushy tails as quilts. Groundhogs retreated to the porous hillside to feast on the buttery fats stored in autumn. The calls of screech owls extinguished before night, and fewer mice darted through the hedge. In January, migrating robins often realized they had not flown far enough south, and continued their journey. On the coldest winter nights, nothing moved. The valley waited in silence for the pale pink moon of April.
One animal I did see moving about in winter, surprisingly (I had always thought of them as hibernators) were black bears. Turns out no black bear truly hibernates. The cold leaves them sluggish; they den for longer hours. But they remain active. I probably saw more bears in winter because of the lack of foliage. On many cold afternoons, I watched them comb the woods, fondle rotten logs with their grotesque tongues, and even eat snow.
Black bears in the Georgia mountains mate during the hottest time of year, in July. (Just imagine the heat in all that fur and friction — better yet, imagine the smell.) Mother bears construct dens for the coming young in autumn and winter, often in craggy hillsides, and give birth to half-pound balls of fuzz in January. During the coldest time of year, the fuzz clumsily expands its prowess. By spring, cubs follow their mothers around in search of fiddleheads, newly formed catbriers, and grubs.
In two winters in the valley, I encountered many bears. I loved slipping into the woods alone, armed only with binoculars, in search of their elusive yet unmistakable forms. Most times I went searching, I did not find them. But like Thoreau said of fishing, it’s not the fish we’re after. When I was lucky enough to see a bear, my senses came to life. I kept as quiet as possible, my heart pounding. I observed mothers with two cubs, mothers with a single cub, ancient graybeard bears, and roaming youngsters with flailing paws.
In the woods beyond the sacred valley, many bears came and many went. One stayed close.
~~~
Each time my south Georgia family visited, they gifted me frozen wonders of the coastal plain. Field peas, butter beans, creamed corn (which they spent days every year putting up), and wild Georgia shrimp. Especially in winter, I loved cooking meals that reminded me of home, of heat, and of the sandy soil and black-water creeks of my upbringing.
When I cooked shrimp, I operated by ritual. The cabin had an upstairs back porch, about 15 feet high. I’d place the garbage bag with shrimp peels up there to avoid crustacean smells filling up the indoors and to make it more difficult for critters to reach the peels. Sometimes I boiled shrimp and the peels stayed on, but I preferred them blackened with butter and Old Bay over my cast iron skillet. Before I’d cook the shrimp, I’d bring Josie inside and lock the doors.
Why?
Because every time I cooked wild Georgia shrimp in that little cabin, a massive, maybe 500-pound male black bear waddled down the mountain, nose stuck up in hungry curiosity. I’d put the shrimp on and within minutes, Josie would be growling at the window. Audrey and I would peek out, hiding our bodies.
"The shrimp smell made him mad with desire. I wondered how this animal of the Blue Ridge might be so enticed by a little water bug from the Altamaha Sound."
Our burly neighbor’s head was as big around as a steering wheel. He swung this way and that after the smell of shrimp, as saliva dripped in elastic strands from his huge drooping lip. His lips would curl and reveal ghastly canine teeth. His eyes, more human-like than I could’ve imagined, would inspect the cabin. Ignoring Josie’s barking, he would walk circles around the place, rummage through gear we stored on the lower back porch, and pause in frustration, unable to locate the source of the scent that drew him.
The shrimp smell made him mad with desire. I wondered how this animal of the Blue Ridge might be so enticed by a little water bug from the Altamaha Sound. Intuition is a powerful force, I suppose. The smell always kept him around for at least an hour, sometimes longer. He’d search hard for several minutes at a time then lose focus momentarily.
The times of lost focus made for superb bear watching. Once the bear lost sight of his objective, he became playful. He would grasp the edge of the front porch, roughly eight feet high, spread his legs and enter warrior pose. He’d dangle as if on monkey bars. He’d wallow in the short grass, tuck his legs, and roll on his back like a dog. He’d stand and scratch his back against the coarse wood siding.
Once, when I wasn’t home, my neighbor from Atlanta pulled up to find the bear sitting on my front steps. He rested there in human posture, chin propped on his fist like a philosopher.
“I bear therefore I am,” my neighbor joked.
I assumed after a couple of encounters that the bear lived on the other side of the ridge directly behind the cabin. He always moseyed down the same hill, and he always showed up fairly quickly. Once, I hiked back there to investigate, got stung by a hornet, and never returned.
On the other side of that ridge, I met a dark forest of thick, twisting rhododendrons. I could see another creek bed below but never made it through the tangle to walk that stream. Somewhere down there, or in the rock wall of the ridge, the colossal bear took slumber. Then a smell, peculiar and alluring, stirred him enough to investigate.
My mother kept me stocked with shrimp, and although I didn’t cook them that often, I knew what would happen when I did. Because of the bear, the shrimp became more than just good food. Each frozen bag contained a sort of sacrament — fleshy catalysts of liturgy. Ammunition.
In a tiny mountain cabin with no TV or internet, bear watching can be an exciting form of entertainment. A couple times, we invited friends over for a low country boil and bear sighting. But we didn’t want to exhaust this creature or torture him too much with aromas he could never taste. We were wise enough not to feed him, and we never held the delusion that the bear was somehow our friend. As far as I know, he never saw us.
Watching the bear, after some time, felt like a privilege. How many people got to observe the same animal so closely so many times? But privileges are easily abused. We decided to cook shrimp less.
One night, in the throes of a psilocybin trip, I thought long about my observations of the bear. I felt compassion for the animal and recognized my shrimp experiments as a kind of trickery. The bear was my natural neighbor, sovereign and beautiful. He wasn’t simply a beast. I thought a lot about other plants and animals of the valley, too — how each in its own way, and perhaps the place itself, was conscious.
There is a tradition among naturalists to avoid personifying nature — and to scold anyone projecting human motivations on other organisms. But are we not all powered by the same force of consciousness? Human attributes are but one side of a vast spectrum of awareness, which no scientist has ever fully understood. Consciousness, I feel, is a natural force flowing through all lifeforms, through receptacles of plant and animal bodies, manifesting itself in our reality in myriad fashion. They are not human, but each version of this awareness deserves our respect as much as any person deserves our love or concern.
My neighbor, the bear, deserved a good neighbor, a considerate one. But despite this revelation, I would go on being an ignorant and aimless human, making dumb decisions that would endanger not only my big neighbor but other parts of the valley as well.
~~~
During my first December in the valley, my heater died, and I sat wrapped in a quilt, alone. I turned on the oven and read Keats to stay warm. The cabin contained no wood-burning stove, a design flaw. I sat alone because my heater wasn’t the only thing dying. Audrey stayed with a friend while the agony of winter invaded our indoor space. She’d grown impatient, I think, with my stoned complacency and lack of concern for material necessities.
My phone rang. The voice of a childhood friend I hadn’t heard from in years spoke on the other end. Bradley had heard that I lived on the mountain close to national forest land. He knew I spent time exploring the woods and that there was a hefty bear population near me.
“Thomas and I want to come bear hunting,” he said excitedly. I also hadn’t seen Thomas, another old friend, in years.
"I knew what they desired — strange rugs for their south Georgia floors, tokens to show their daddies they had conquered monsters in yonder mountains."
“Why, are you bloodthirsty?” I asked.
“We don’t necessarily want to kill one, we just want to go. Will you take us?”
I knew they wanted to kill a bear. They wouldn’t ask to visit otherwise. We had grown apart for a reason. Bradley and Thomas spent most of their time traveling to various regions to destroy local wildlife. Bradley’s dad took him hunting in Africa and in other parts of the world. I knew what they desired — strange rugs for their south Georgia floors, tokens to show their daddies they had conquered monsters in yonder mountains.
Looking back, especially since this phone call happened only days after the mushroom trip in which I’d felt at one with the bear, I am bewildered by my response. Perhaps I felt prideful that they chose me as a guide. Maybe I felt a desire to show off what I’d learned about the place. Even though I had vowed to avoid animal blood, I somehow still felt the primordial thrill of man after beast. I had grown up hunting after all.
“Okay,” I agreed. We planned for a weekend the following month.
I hung up, thought immediately of my big neighbor, and cringed. I had not even considered him during the conversation.
In north Georgia at this time, a hunter could harvest two bears per season. They could not shoot a mother bear or any bear under 75 pounds. Almost no one hunted bears then, and almost no one does today. Black bear meat, odd-flavored and fatty, disturbs most palates. The Cherokee enjoyed fish cooked in bear fat and found other uses for the animal’s body. Today’s bear hunters, unless hermit survivalists, mainly seek fur.
Soon after the conversation with Bradley, I drove to a nearby country store, which doubled as a wild game processor. I stood outside when an old rough Ford truck pulled up, blood dripping from the tailgate. A young male bear sprawled out in the bed. The driver opened the tailgate, grabbed the animal’s front paw, and slung it on the gravel.
The bear was no more than 100 pounds. Its tongue hung from its mouth and steam rose from the gunshot wound into the cold morning. Though freshly killed, it smelled like a dead animal.
“It’s been getting in our trash for damn near a year,” the man said. “I was waiting till it was old enough to shoot.”
His face was mountain-weathered but kind. He didn’t care for the meat but didn’t want to waste the animal.
The processor punctured the bear’s wrists and pulled it up on a game-hanger. It hung in crucifix form, its fur coat parted. I could see the shape of its muscular upper body. Its chest looked like an ape’s — or a person’s. Blood trickled down and stained its belly. The man who shot the bear winced. I think we had the same thought.
“I’ll never shoot another one if I don’t have to,” he said.
~~~
One cold Friday evening in January, the boys from south Georgia rolled in like the hungry hordes of Genghis Khan — young and lean and probably half-drunk. Outlaw country blared up my drive. The valley rested, its hemlock grove a proper ashram, until it didn’t. Empty cartridge rounds and beer cans rattled in their truck bed. Like kamikaze pilots, they rode on bombshells.
Thomas was tall and dark, Bradley a little shorter but still tall and golden blond. I had been around mountain hipsters too long and had forgotten the rugged appeal of Deep South men. They were affably red-cheeked and firmly un-PC. They brought bourbon and deer tenderloin. We built a fire, played some old country tunes on guitar, and mulled over the hunt, discussing first the lay of the forest.
I pointed in the opposite direction of my neighbor and told them their best shot was farther up the creek about halfway to the base of Columbia Mountain. I knew sending them this direction would diminish their chances of seeing a big bear — some younger bears might pass through, but no other mature males settled the valley. Mature male black bears are known for having extensive territories. Another male bear would be crazy to set up shop so close to the behemoth that lived behind my cabin.
"After suiting up, the boys looked like they’d stepped out of a Cabela’s catalog. They had wounded rabbit calls, hand-warmers, camo facemasks, and polar jackets."
I wanted the boys to have a good hunt but not if it meant killing my neighbor. With my freezer full of Georgia shrimp, I decided not to tell the best bear story I’ve ever known.
The next morning, we scouted the woods. After finding little sign, Bradley said he’d seen some bear attractant at the Walmart in town. The idea of this made me nervous, thinking the attractant might draw my neighbor out of the woods, but I kept quiet.
We picked up two gallons of what looked like antifreeze containers. “Raspberry Jelly Donut Liquid Bear Attractant,” the jug read. I had never heard of such.
That afternoon, we prepared for an evening hunt. I decided I would hunt with Thomas, and I called my best friend, Carson, over to serve as Bradley’s guide. We planned to sit in the woods until dark, and I didn’t want anyone getting lost in the national forest. Carson was a heck of a woodsman, also grew up hunting, and had hiked with me several times into the area. He knew it well enough to find his way out.
Bradley and Carson sat on a ridge and looked down into a headwater stream. They would walk farther into the forest than Thomas and I. We planned to crouch among a few fallen trees in a stand of young maples half a mile up Pruitt Creek.
After suiting up, the boys looked like they’d stepped out of a Cabela’s catalog. They had wounded rabbit calls, hand-warmers, camo facemasks, and polar jackets. Not possessing any camo, I wore a brown sweater and green corduroy pants. I was armed with binoculars, a journal, and a walking stick. They looked like assassins; I looked like Allen Ginsburg headed to a reading.
We strode through the woods with the bear goo containers as if we were headed to replace someone’s radiator — two guides, two bear hunters, all full of varied anxieties. We came to a stand of hemlocks, the place where our paths diverged, and snow started falling. Not one of us had checked the weather forecast.
The snow began as tiny crystals and quickly transformed into bulky, coin-sized flakes. The air turned icy as the sun met the ridgeline. The forest smelled fresh, and other than the snowfall, nothing moved.
We poured sticky red syrup near the blind of fallen logs — me, in utter shame. The goo stank, glistened, and collected snow.
Thomas and I propped our backs against one another. We sat in silence, looking in opposite directions. The evening froze deeper, and the sky spit big dandelion heads. A purple-white dimension overtook the forest.
Within about 15 minutes, a black dot far in the distance zig-zagged down a ridgeline. It did not walk; it ran down the mountain. I looked through my binoculars to see an adolescent male trotting, legs bouncing enthusiastically. It smelled the attractant.
I exhaled in relief that this bear, not my big neighbor, moved toward us. My relief dissipated rather quickly.
The bear met the valley floor and galloped toward us. I whispered, “Bear. Don’t turn around.”=
The curious beast slowed to a creep. Thirty yards, 20 yards, 15. He paused, then blew aggressively. My heart pumped like a steam engine. The bear sniffed at the goo but kept his eyes on me. Thomas could not see this, but he heard it, and I felt his breathing intensify through my back.
The bear stood, chest bowed, maybe 10 yards away. Its eyes were deadlocked on us. It scratched at the ground and took one step closer. Its gaze froze on my face.
I knew the bear was pissed. Most bears ran when they saw me, but scarce as food is in winter, we had promised food and not delivered. It came close enough for me to smell its sour odor. Its hair hung in shaggy dreads over its body. I had the terrifying thought that this beast was death come to harvest us. The forest grew darker as the bear stood watching us. Columbia Mountain perched like a gloomy crown on over its head.
Even though Thomas had a rifle, I knew the bear could do damage if it pounced at us. Shaking, I reached back and touched Thomas's hand. Afraid that if he turned around, the bear would be on top of him, I said, “Hold on.” The bear grumbled, looked to the side, and in that second, my teeth joined to yell, “Shoot!”
Thomas turned his shoulder, the bear bolted, and ran as fast as a deer. It darted behind a patch of laurels near the creek. Thomas turned to track the bear in his scope and shot. The gun blasted right beside my ear and deafened me. I fell to the ground. Thomas missed, and the bear vanished through the trees.
“Let’s go,” Thomas yelled, wanting to run after the animal.
“You go ahead,” I said, “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
Thomas briefly searched for blood. He breathed shakily. Minutes after the bear had gone, my body shook, not only from the cold.
Carson and Bradley emerged from the woods at dark with no blood trail behind them. They saw a fox but no bear. I recounted the hunt, and a dreadful look washed over Bradley’s face. He called us lucky. I did not feel lucky.
That night, Thomas, Carson, and I rode to a nearby friend’s house to have some beers. I quietly celebrated a successful hunt; no bear had been harmed. Bradley, frustrated that we had seen a bear and he hadn’t, stayed at the cabin.
Sunday morning, we rose early and walked to the woods in darkness. The boys’ hunger for a kill had intensified.
The sun rose, birds stirred, and the great mystery of life showed itself. The creek spoke under sheets of ice and snow. Sparkling white veils draped over the cliffs of Columbia Mountain. I knew no bears would be moving around.
The boys returned to the cabin defeated. As they packed the truck, we said we’d try again next year. I knew there wouldn’t be another bear hunt. We said our goodbyes. Thomas, I think, felt a new degree of respect for black bears. I hope so anyway. The boys roared down the road before noon.
~~~
This isn’t an anti-hunting proposition. I am not meaning at all to say that I am better for not hunting. Stereotypes be damned, most hunters, I believe, are good people. I was raised by a father who both hunted and cared deeply for wildlife. When he served as president of a hunting club in south Georgia, I listened to him consult biologists on how to best manage a healthy deer population. I watched him enforce fines when hunters broke the rules. He lectured me on the idea that to harvest an animal is to take life out of the world. Dad always said that every hunter must come to terms with that fact.
I’m also not accusing my old friends of being unethical hunters, even though I do take issue with hunting solely for trophy. But we were young and full of gusto. They were after one thing; I was after another. I have faith in the process of maturity, at least for most people. There’s no telling what those boys are up to. Probably raising young hunters of their own. Maybe recounting the story of a bear hunt.
As maturity goes, this memory represents for me an important lesson. That we should protect what we claim to love. That we should ponder more often on what is worth protecting. Sometimes taking care of what you love is simple. Sometimes it isn’t.
"Porter Valley provided a setting for me to meet life on simple terms — sun, stream, stone, and creature."
The longer I lived in the valley, the more I saw the place as a teacher, as a landscape of lessons. When the bear hunters left that winter Sunday, I was forced to confront how reckless a thing pride can be. Porter Valley provided a setting for me to meet life on simple terms — sun, stream, stone, and creature. Life doesn’t have to be as complicated as we tend to make it. The natural world is always showing us that simplicity is bliss. The valley revealed to me the value of honesty, and when spring came, how beautiful change can be.
I cooked shrimp in that little cabin at least a few more times but never saw my big neighbor again.
This story is dedicated to the memory of Will Martin — friend, fellow nature lover, fine writer and human being.
James Murdock is a writer and naturalist from Jasper County, Georgia. He is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia’s narrative nonfiction MFA program and was a finalist for the 2022 Reed Environmental Writing Award. Murdock writes mainly about people and nature, and the relationship between the two. He published a book of poetry, "Think, Dear Daughter," in 2019. Murdock lives on a farm southeast of Atlanta and is at work on his first nonfiction book.