Bear meets salmon at Katmai National Park in Alaska

Today’s A Minute Away video, “Bears and salmon on Brooks River, Katmai, Alaska,” is a last look at one of my favorite trips in the last few years. In July, photographer Mark Boster and I went by small plane to the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska, to watch the coastal brown bears in their annual salmon-feeding frenzy.

While the salmon struggled against the current to climb up 4-foot Brooks Falls, the bears stood at the foot of the falls, swiping with claws and snapping with jaws when fish came near.

Most of the salmon had already passed by the time we got there, so we saw more bears than fish. But the drama on the river was still pretty thick. At 0:48 and 0:50 in my video, you’ll see leaping salmon sneak past a bear. At 0:52, you glimpse that same bear tearing apart a less lucky salmon.

You’ll find more about this rare place in this story, along with dozens of great photos and a video by Times photographer Mark Boster.

“A Minute Away” is a video series in which nothing much happens -- except you see the world, and hear it, and get a minute’s respite from workaday life. (Actually, some are as long as 1:40.) These are casual moments without talking heads or narration – just natural sound from Machu Picchu, Red Square, the Yucatan, an Alaska float plane or the reading room of the New York Public Library. We add new ones weekly, and we’ve got more than 60 of them now, so if you’d prefer a full hour away…