A black bear entered Juneau’s historic Alaskan Hotel around noon on Sunday. Hotel staff said the bear let itself out with a loud crash just a short while later.
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The bear crawled through the open, second story window of room 213, which is at ground level since the hotel is built into the hillside.
Queenie Lim, a housekeeper at the Alaskan, said she was on her way to clean room 214 when she saw the bear. She said she didn’t believe her eyes, so she double-checked before calling other staff over.
“I’m very excited to see the bear here, but I never expect that I will see the bear, like, in the hotel,” Lim said.
Lim said this is her first summer in Alaska, and her first-ever bear sighting. She’s in a cultural exchange program from Malaysia.
“I was just in shock,” said Diarta Jashari, a housekeeper who joined Lim on the scene.
Together, they saw the bear walk down the hall into the open door of room 208. The guest staying there had just checked out.
They decided to trap the bear in the room.
“One guest was here — a guy — and then he was like, ‘oh, I’m interested to see the bear,’ and then he helped us to close the door, and then we called the police,” Jashari said.
But by the time the police came, the bear was gone. Local resident Quinton Woolman-Morgan recorded the police scanner radio chatter.
“They trapped him in 208, They heard a window broke and — break — and believe that the bear left through that broken window, but they’re unsure,” an officer said over the radio.
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The bear left behind not only shattered glass, but a big pile of scat on top.
Bettye Adams, owner of the Alaskan Hotel and Bar, said the animal must have been as nervous as the staff.
“I can’t believe it,” Adams said. “It was having anxiety.”
But what attracted the bear in the first place?
The trash can in room 213 was tipped over. Hotel staff said it contained a mostly empty takeout food box and not much else.
Adams said this is not the first time a bear has entered the establishment. In 2013, a bear walked right into the bar and the bartender yelled at it.
“She just went, ‘get out of here’ and just railed and waved her arms and the bear just stopped like, ‘whoops,’” Adams said.
She said it backed up and then walked out the door.
Adams said bears that have come into the Alaskan have always used doors in the past. She said this is the first time one has come and gone through the windows.
Anthony Crupi is a regional supervisor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Southeast. He said this is a lean time of year for bears in Juneau, so it’s not a surprising time to see a lot of bear action downtown.
“What they’re consuming is really still not putting on a lot of weight,” Crupi said. “They’re waiting for the salmon and the berries and abundant resources that come a little bit later in summer.”
He said people should be vigilant about closing windows and storing trash where bears can’t get it.
In 2024, Fish and Game euthanized two bears that got aggressive around trash cans on Franklin Street, which is heavily populated with cruise ship tourists in the summer.
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Crupi said that if a bear enters a home or business, call the police.
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