Do you need to carry a gun when you go up there? A friend just taught me about the value of a .44 in Alaska. I've never fired a weapon but am thinking about doing some deep woods, middle of nowhere camping soon and want to be prepared.
I've been up there a few times, and yes, a couple of the times we had a firearm with us. My buddy that I've gone up there with happens to also be a police officer, so he brought his XD 45 along (he brings it everywhere though). When I've gone without him, we just made sure we had a fog-horn and some bear mace in our gear. Never had to use the mace, used the fog horn once. If you camp right, and pack food properly, and tend and cleanup the campsite for anything that might be "bear attracting", you'll be fine. Alaska is another story, as there bears are much larger. Only thing you have up North here in Minnesota are black bears, which can be aggressive if they have cubs, but they are nothing compared to kodiaks or grizzlies. I tend to see MORE bears at campGROUNDS around Minnesota, than I do straight up camping in the wild. In the wild, they are scared and leave you alone. At campgrounds, they know there are dumpsters and foods to steal, so they just kind of go in there every night. Only seen bears in the BWCA a handful of times, and they were normally hightailing it away from us. We had one group of black bears wander through our campsite one night, but we just used the fog horn and they bolted. I have no idea if this fact is accurate or not, but I've heard that more people get injured and attacked by moose than by bears up around BWCA. Again, no clue if that's complete bullshit or not. But black bears are pretty skittish and runaway. But if we come across a moose, we turn around.