The Katmai National Park is a vast wilderness full of coastal brown bears of all shapes, sizes and colours. Spending time with them you also discover that each has a very different character. During the salmon run in August and September the focus is on catching salmon and teaching the young ones how to fish. Some are much better at fishing than others, and the antics of the young ones in both fishing and playing are a joy to watch. After a long hard fish they shake off the water and then lie down to rest. The gulls come in to finish up the salmon scraps as soon as the bears walk away. Some of the encounters with the bears are astoundingly close. It is an amazing experience, sitting relaxed beside an apex predator and one that is truly impossible to describe.