The Alaska Regulations no longer mandate carrying a firearm in your aircraft as they once did. No doubt they were removed for political reasons.
The whole survival / bear protection firearm question is hotly debated up here and probably always will be. I have lived here in Alaska and spent much of my time in the bush ever since Eisenhower was the president. Plus I now fly for a living.
I have never been charged by a brown bear unless I did something stupid.
I believe they can read your thoughts within a short range. When they see an armed man who is thinking "Mess with me and I kill you, or just go about your business and you'll be fine." They tend to leave one alone...
There are various things to consider:
1. What time of year? In the deep winter there are NO bears. Wolves yes.. But your biggest concern will be freezing to death and oddly enough dehydration (water is frozen and you loose a lots of body hydration while working in deep cold). You have a better chance of seeing rabbits and ptarmigan than anything else. But more than likely you won't see anything.
2. What area are you traveling within. Some areas up area are open gravel banks, river deltas, totally open tundra or grass. In those areas any game will see you long before you get close. Other areas are full of little lakes and ponds which are prime duck and loon habitat. And then again we have areas of dense rain forest with trees well over 100 feet tall.
3. What type of aircraft and or boat you have. A DH-2 Beaver can carry lots of junk...You could eat freeze dried food until spring comes along...
But Super Cub's or Citabria's have limited space. After your food and other gear you may only have enough room for a pistol.
The way to build up your survival gear is start by thinking of what item you would need at the exclusion of all other items. Then add to that by thinking about how to build on each items strength or weakness.
Since I have limited room inside my Cub on floats I carry two survival gear boxes like this one, and a bunch of items in my survival vest.
A vest is a good item to have since there is a string possibility that your main box of survival gear could be lost in a crash or sinking.
I always though that a stainless or scandium 3 barreled (semi Drilling) break-down would be interesting.
A 12 gauge with a 22LR barrel and another barrel for a heavy rimmed cartridge. (45-70, 444 Marlin, 375 Win, 348 Win)
With ammo storage in the stock.