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The Bear hunt
The day started early with a 6.45pm start in the Bear office. No bright colours, no perfume or smellies. Don't want to alert or scare the bears.
Two little boats each with 16 passengers on board set off into the early morning gloom. The bears were far away, up Knight Inlet at Glendale Cove. The Inlet was well sheltered by towering mountains and we made good speed on the 2 hour trip to the cove. At the cove we transferred from our speed boats to flat bottomed boats designed to navigate shallow water.
High tide had passed and we needed to make haste in order to get as far upriver as possible before the water level fell. At the river mouth there was a wide area of sedge grass, sparse trees and marsh. 80 yards off there was a female Grizzly with a cub. They were rooting around, digging up the soil and feeding on edible roots. They hung around for a while before ambling off into the woods. Further upstream we came upon a lone male bear padding away from us along a gravel bank. He turned a corner and was quickly out of sight.
We settled down to wait just downstream of a shallow section where the salmon could be seen scuttling upstream to spawn. This was a favourite place for the bears to do a spot of fishing as the tide fell. We waited and waited. Bald Eagles came and went, mocking us with their seagull impressions. We were teased by an enormous bear roar which emanated from just around the bend. Just as we were getting restless and thinking that lunch might be attractive a mother with three cubs came to try their luck with the salmon. They were this year's cubs born in January or February. Little balls of fur they were sticking close to mum. A litter of three is quite unusual and it is rare for all three to survive the first winter. With snow already falling in Lake Louise and Whistler winter wasn't far away. A few more salmon before the big sleep wouldn't go wrong. It wasn't long before mum produced the goods and having had a bite offered it up to the first cub to arrive. It then sped off with its siblings in hot pursuit. The bears disappeared into the trees and just as we were making preparations to move off they reappeared on the other side of the island and went back to fishing.
Eventually we had to move or be stranded and we coasted downstream to the mouth of the river. On the grass there was a single loan male bear. We pulled up at the bank. We had piqued his interest as he slowly made his way over to study us at closer range. He came at a diagonal to within about 40 yards of the boat before sniffing something even more interesting upstream.
After a nice picnic lunch we made our way back to Telegraph Cove. The wind had got up and we had a bit of a bumpy ride. On the way we passed several more Humpback Whales, one of which was sleeping. Let sleeping whales lie is the rule as they don't seem to like being disturbed.
- comments
Lesley Fantastic!