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McNeil River Offers Exclusive Brown Bear Trip

This summer, 257 lucky people were chosen from an applicant base of 1,500 to enter Alaska's 114,400 acre McNeil River state sanctuary to see the brown bear close up. CNN reports the sanctuary is 250 miles south of Anchorage reachable by water plane. Chosen visitors bring their own backbacks backpacks full of necessary items and sanctuary guides lead groups of ten through the wilderness on four day excursions. The program was designed not only for the sheer pleasure (or fear) of seeing bears, but to get bears used to seeing people as non-threatening entities.

Steve Hall | August 30, 2004 | Featured Destinations | Permanent link
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Comments

Hmm, "to see the brown bear," instead of "so."

Anchorage is missing a letter.

And "to get bears used to seeing people as neutral entities, and learn that they are not threatening," would be slightly more clear.

Posted by: Beth at Aug 30, 2004 1:54:18 PM

Beth, three points! I agree with all of the above. But, since you need to find mistakes in at least two different posts, you need to come back and attack another post in the future to win a book. I have a feeling we'll be seeing you again soon.

Posted by: Rick Bruner at Aug 30, 2004 3:29:57 PM

For the record, here was the original text Beth commented on, which I've since corrected above:

This summer, 257 lucky people were chosen from an applicant base of 1,500 to enter Alaska's 114,400 acre McNeil River state sanctuary so see the brown bear close up. CNN reports the sanctuary is 250 miles south of Achorage reachable by water plane. Chosen visitors bring their own backbacks full of necessary items and sanctuary guides lead groups of ten through the wilderness on four day excursions. The program was designed not only for the sheer pleasure (or fear) of seeing a bear but to get bears used to seeing people as neutral entities learning they are not threatening.

Posted by: Rick Bruner at Aug 30, 2004 3:30:44 PM

"Chosen visitors bring their own backbacks," come on! "Backbacks?" I think I found a spelling mistake, unless "backback" is Alaskan slang.

Posted by: Erin at Aug 31, 2004 1:37:18 PM

The sentence "CNN reports the sanctuary is 250 miles south of Anchorage reachable by water plane." should have a comma after Anchorage.

Also, the sentence "The program was designed not only for the sheer pleasure (or fear) of seeing bears but to get bears used to seeing people as non-threatening entities." should have a comma after bears.

Posted by: Randi Clarken at Aug 31, 2004 3:28:16 PM

Ugh. This may not be as fun as I thought. I have a feeling Steve is going to be a real boon to this contest.

Okay, so Erin, you clearly have a point, as "backback" is indeed not a word.

Randi, you're attacking commas? Commas, fer cripes sake?! Do you have any idea how controversial commas as in the English language? Well...Do you?? For the record, spelling is my demon; grammar and punctuation, not so much. (In fact, it's fair to say I've been called a "Grammar God" by some dubious online test.)

So, consulting The New Well Tempered Sentence, I find this rule:

When the subject is stated only once, but has two actions, or verbs, a comma may help bridge them if the conjunction between them is but.

Argue the case, if you must, but frankly it doesn't really matter. You need to find mistakes in two separate posts to get the guide book, so since you already have one point for this post, it's irrelevant whether you get another for it or not. Now you just need to keep reading!

:-)

Posted by: Rick Bruner at Aug 31, 2004 8:36:03 PM