'I got a second chance'

COEUR d’ALENE — In Tim Christie’s office at home, on a shelf, sits a size 8 Nike running shoe.

It is the shoe that very likely saved his life.

“Not a week goes by that I don’t look at it,” he said Tuesday. “There are damn few days I don’t wake up, open my eyes and go, ‘I’ve got another one. I’ve got another day. What am I going to do with it?’”

It was 37 years ago to this day, when he was 37 years old, that a fleeing Christie was very nearly yanked from a tree by an angry grizzly bear at Glacier National Park.

If he had been wearing his hunting boots, the griz chasing Christie would have probably had him, perhaps killed him, at the very least taught him a lesson he would never forget for upsetting her baby.

Instead, the gray and purple Nike shoe slipped off Christie’s right foot in a way a hunting boot never would have, and he lived.

It was a life-and-death situation that the Coeur d’Alene photographer and retired North Idaho College instructor said let him go on to take hundreds of thousands of photographs, fueled by an appreciation for life and how close he came to losing it.

“I was given a second chance. At the time, I didn't think of it that way,” the 74-year-old said. “I just thought I got damn lucky. But I got a second chance. I got a chance to go out and do something important. And I think my photography work and my writing work have been important.”

Nearly four decades later after escaping the jaws and claws of death, Christie has released a book of his 50 favorite photos, each accompanied by the story behind them.

“Stories Painted With Light: Amazing Wildlife Photographs and How They Were Made,” is not just a book of great images. It’s a book that opens the world of one of the region’s finest photographers.

“The book to me is kind of a celebration of what I’ve been able to do over the last 37 years,” he said. “I wanted to create something that people could look at and get a sense of what it’s like to be me, to be where I’ve been, to see what I’ve seen.”

Christie has seen up close what most of us have only seen on TV.

Grizzlies. Elk. Mountain bluebirds. Pronghorn buck. Mountain goats. Wolves. Moose. River otters. Great horned owls. Polar bears. Rattlesnakes.

He has striking, sharp images that seem to reveal the very heart of these creatures. Some, he says, were lucky shots, happening in the right place, capturing a moment, camera in hand.

“Sometimes I just fall into situations,” he said.

Others required planning and sacrifice for hours, days and weeks. They demanded miles of trudging through wilderness and waiting in the rain, driving thousands of miles, and crossing oceans.

He recently returned from a nine-day trip to Canada to photograph elk. He knows where they are, when they'll be there — and he goes. It’s not luck.

“That’s part of the magic of wildlife photography,” Christie said. “I’ve been able to see things and experience things many people will never experience or see.”

His stories will help people understand.

“I really believe the stories give a perspective on the image,” Christie said.

He writes of a conversation with a fox.

Playing fetch with a coyote.

Witnessing a bighorn sheep defy gravity.

Befriending a family of quail outside his front door.

A prairie dog that answered his prayers.

But it's not just about pretty pictures or cute stories.

“One of the things about the images I’ve tried to photograph and tried to explain, it’s the intimacy of the photographer and what the photography can bring out of the animal,” he said. "It can be ferocious or it can be tender.”

The purpose of his book is twofold, Christie said.

One, it’s a celebration of his survival of that grizzly attack 37 years ago.

“At that time I had no idea what difference it would make in my life,” he said.

Two, he wants people to be aware of the amazing beauty and wildlife all around them. He hopes to inspire them to venture out and see it for themselves.

He wants to give people an appreciation and sense of what wildlife means to him — and what it has taught him.

“In many cases, I’ve learned amazing things,” he said.

Including how to escape a grizzly bear.

On that morning of Oct. 4, 1986, Christie came upon a whitetail doe and buck just off a road at Glacier. He took a few pictures before they disappeared into the timber, so he decided to follow.

He considered putting on the preferred hiking boots for trekking in the woods that were sitting on the passenger-side floor, but didn’t want to lose contact with the doe and buck so he left his Nikes on and hurried after them.

Turned out to be the right decision.

Over the next 90 minutes or so, he shot six rolls of film as the whitetails wandered a few hundreds yards into the timber.

He captured crisp, tight shots, including a close-up that later became a magazine cover.

It was going amazingly well and he was "in heaven.”

Then, heard branches break.

Both the buck and doe alerted, tails raised. A moment later, they bolted.

Christie initially thought a friend he was planning to meet later had spotted his truck parked on the roadside and was looking for him.

“I started to leave when I saw a little brown blur run by and it bawled,” he said. “I knew it was a grizzly.”

Christie didn’t wait. He tossed his camera down and started climbing a red fir tree.

He could hear the mama grizzly charging, growling, popping her teeth. She was pissed because something scared her baby.

The bear hit the tree with such force it shook, then she started climbing after the guy in it, using branches as ladder rungs.

Christie says her fury was like that of a junkyard dog.

He had read about such encounters between man and bear and knew one thing: He was in deep trouble.

Halfway up the red fir, his foot was on a branch as he tried to get higher.

“I felt her grab my foot,” he wrote. “I screamed and tried to kick my foot free. She had me. She bit down hard. My running shoe ripped off.”

“I think she thought she had me,” Christie said.

The bear fell back, stripping branches off the tree as she went.

“At that point in time I got highly motivated and got to the top of the tree,” Christie said.

He looked down at the she-bear staring up at him, eyes glowing in the morning light.

Christie, despite the danger, saw beauty in the moment.

“I said to her, ‘Babe, you’ve got beautiful eyes,’” he said, smiling.

The bear didn’t care for the compliment. She took a last look at him, woofed and disappeared into the trees.

After staying put for 90 minutes, Christie inched his way down the tree, looked around and yelled.

“Hey bear. Hey bear. Are you there, bear?”

No answer.

Christie picked up his camera and shoe and headed for his truck. About 100 yards away, he stepped on something that cut his foot, so he stopped to put on that running shoe.

Not for long.

“I heard some brush behind me break and I booked it,” he said.

When a breathless Christie reached the road, a park ranger pulled up. Christie was a mess. Face scratched and covered with tree pitch and twigs and pine needles in his hair and nostrils.

"What happened?” the ranger asked.

Christie explained he was attacked by a grizzly, but said to leave it alone as it was protecting its cub. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“She was doing what she was put on Earth to do,” he said.

The encounter left Christie shaken.

“The fear factor is right up there. It’s something I never want to have to deal with again,” he said.

But it didn’t deter him from returning to the wild, where risk is part of any worthwhile adventure.

“I just know I was damn happy I wasn’t bear bait,” he said, laughing.

Surviving a run-in with a grizzly has given him "an appreciation for the little things in life and how, oftentimes, the little things become the big things.”

He considers “Stories Painted With Light: Amazing Wildlife Photographs and How They Were Made” a legacy of survival and perseverance.

Tim Christie is far from finished. There are more animals to photograph. More stories to tell.

“I don’t know whether I am in the fall of my life or the early winter of my life," he said. "I don’t. And no one really knows how much time you have left.”

He does know this: He will use his time well and wildlife will be part of it.

“Nature is really, really cool,” Christie said. “There’s so many cool things out there. You don’t have to be a photographer. There’s so much more to this world other than the concrete jungle that we live in.”

Just remember, grizzlies are part of it.

“Stories Painted With Light: Amazing Wildlife Photographs and How They Were Made” is $49.95. It should be available today at the Well Read Moose, Camera Corral and from Tim Christie at Tim@timchristiephoto.com.