Bearizona: The Bears of the Ponderosa

Just outside Williams at the junction of Interstate Forty and the road to the Grand Canyon stands one of the more unusual wildlife parks in the American Southwest. Bearizona opened in twenty ten, founded by brothers Sean and Dennis Casey, whose family had operated a similar drive-through wildlife park in South Dakota called Bear Country USA. The Williams version covers about one hundred sixty acres of ponderosa pine forest and operates as a three-mile drive-through, where visitors move slowly through the forest in their own vehicles while bears, wolves, bison, and other native wildlife roam freely around them.

There is also a walk-through section called Fort Bearizona where smaller animals can be seen at closer range. About half the animals at Bearizona are rescues, animals that could not be returned to the wild after injury or habituation to human contact. The park has become one of the more popular stops on the drive between Williams and the Grand Canyon, drawing families who have already seen the canyon from the rim and want a different kind of encounter with the Southwest's wildlife.

There is something genuinely strange and entertaining about sitting in a minivan while a large black bear ambles past the window with complete indifference, unbothered by the line of cars following at five miles per hour through what is, from the bear's perspective, simply the forest where it lives.