Galbreath was cooking chicken and potatoes for dinner when she noticed the unusual-looking patron.

"I saw its head peeking around the corner, and I thought I was seeing things," Galbreath said. "Then I saw the rest of it, and it wasn't a dog, so I just tried to figure out what to do."

She ended up backing out of the other door, while police officers chased it out of the store and down the beach without incident. Galbreath said that in her first year in Alaska that was as close as she had been to a bear, and, she added, "That's the closest I ever want to be to a bear."

-- Juneau Empire