Remembering bear expert Chuck Jonkel

Dr. Charles ‘Chuck’ Jonkel passed over The Great Divide this week. He never owned property on the North Fork, but spent so many years here researching bears that I feel he was an actual North Forker.

My first memories of Chuck came in the late 1950s or early 1960s when he was on the North Fork doing research on black bears. Mel Ruder did an extensive article in the HHN with pictures of Chuck going into the den of a hibernating black bear to work on the sleeping bear.

He returned to the North Fork later to do research on grizzly bears and spent a lot of time with locals trying to educate us about living in bear country. Most difficult time for him I’m sure was when the Geifer bear broke into cabins in the Middle Fork and was moved to the North Fork. Instead of returning to the Middle Fork this really big bear went on a North Fork rampage. In a short time, the Geifer bear broke into over 20 North Fork cabins, some multiple times, and virtually destroyed the interiors. At my place he broke two windows, one coming in and one going out, broke the sofa in half and completely demolished the kitchen. He even took a nap on my bed and defecated in the middle of the floor. For a couple of years I did not wash off his paw prints left on the inside of my picture window. A list of folks worked day and night to stop this bear.

State Fish and Game folks and federal trappers set traps, Chuck Jonkel put out aversive packets around cabins and everyone carried a rifle hoping for a shot at the rogue bear.

Several bears were killed but not Geifer. Winter came and the bears went into hibernation with everyone making preparations for the bear’s return in the spring and a lot of public opposition to any more bears being transplanted in the North Fork.

The end was anticlimactic. Geifer was killed by a grocery clerk in a legal hunt in British Columbia early the next spring. I heard he had the bear mounted standing on his hind feet and he is on display somewhere in Pennsylvania. Too bad, I would like to have him in Sondreson Hall.

After Jonkel left the University of Montana he still returned to the North Fork every summer and hosted a meeting of grizzly bear experts. He told me bear experts should spend a weekend every year in bear country.

I last saw Chuck when I was invited to his 80th birthday at Sondreson Meadows. 

He was not only a famous grizzly expert, he was a fine man, a great friend and teacher with a good sense of humor. I will miss him and send my condolences to his son Jamie who is also a bear expert and was my North Fork neighbor one winter. 

It is appropriate that Chuck died as the bears are coming out of hibernation.