Grizzly bear tour

Today I go on my grizzly bear trip. Besides the kayaking trip this is the big day trip I have been looking forward to.

The boat leaves between 6:45 and 7:00 from Telegraph Cove, 45 – 60 minutes from Port Hardy. This means that I get up around 445 to prepare, eat and drive to Telegraph Cove. I’m told there may be bears along the road so I had better drive slowly. How ironic would it be to miss my grizzly tour because of some black bears along the road. Fortunately I had planned ahead by stopping at one of the grocery stores the day before picking up something to eat and drink; there are no shops along the way for a hot chocolate and a muffin, no coffee for me.

I arrived at 6:35 along with 3 others so we took off to pick up some others along the way and would catch up with the rest of the group at the pier where we stage into flat bottom boats to go up the estuary. Once again it was mostly cloudy, no rain but windy later in the afternoon.

We rode for two hours before we arrived at the staging area. There were about 24 of us total so we split up into 2 boats for the trip up the river. The boats have one long bench along the length with a back in the center so we all faced to the sides of the boat as we travelled. We were constantly standing and sitting trying to get a better view of the wildlife, bears in particular. In all there were three boats that rotated through the river because there really isn’t room for all three to go in at once.

There are a couple of rules for those going on this trip; No perfume, aftershave or anything strong smelling. And no food!

We made the first trip in; saw bear and wolf tracks, a half eaten salmon, (I won’t show the photo), lots of bald eagles, mergansers (a type of duck), and deer, but no bears “Not to worry” said Lindsey, “I’ve never been skunked yet”. I immediately asked him how long he had been doing this “Three years”. I felt a little better but still was not convinced.

On our second trip in we went down one of the side channels of the river. As we went further up the channel it kept closing in with lots of grasses all around. Lindsey jumped out and started pulling us through the channel and I had this vision of the African Queen going through my head. I mentioned this to one of the other passengers and she had to agree, but we weren’t laughing about it. I’m happy to report we did make it back out without losing anyone. As we were going back to the main channel we had the option of either breaking for lunch or going back up the river for another look. We all agreed we can eat anytime so let’s go look some more. Well there was nothing to be seen this time either…… But on the way out we saw something moving along the shore just below the trees. It was a bear. Not only a bear, it was a grizzly mom with her cub! A silent cheer went up from all of us. We were told not to make any noise when bears were present because the sound may cause them to go back from where they came. At first we were rather far from them, but we were able to get closer and Lindsey jumped out of the boat in waist deep water to pull us a bit closer and hold us there. I think we ended up being less than 200’ from them.

They were interested in eating; they ate the grasses along the shore and used their paws to rake the crabapples off the trees. Their paws were huge! We were all just clicking away with our still and video cameras. Once in a while I put down my camera to look through my binoculars. The view through the binoculars was tremendous; it put them up close and personal. After they ate for a while they sat down and played with the cub jumping up on to mom and batting her and mom taking it and occasionally batting back. They wandered down the shore a little more and found more to eat, looked around and walked back into the woods. I think they were out there for over 30 minutes from the time we first saw them before they disappeared back into the woods. It was really moving seeing the mom and her cub.

From there we went back to the staging area for lunch. We were all talking about the sighting amongst ourselves; there were a lot of smiles that afternoon! We were advised to start heading back because of the gale force winds coming our way and we were going right into them. This turned out to be an E-ticket ride. The waves were pounding the boat the entire time we were going back; our two hour trip in the morning turned out to be closer to a three hour trip on the way back. I was starting to get worried about my arrival because I had a 700 PM meeting with the kayak guides in Port Hardy. This meeting is to find out what to do, what to pack, where to pack our personal stuff and how to pack our personal stuff. We arrived at the port at 5:15 I shot a photo or two and drove like mad to Port Hardy. On my way to make the 7:00 meeting I had to; get gas for the rental car, return the rental car and find a taxi to get back to town. I arrived at the hotel at 6:45, enough time to clean up and change my clothes.

After our meeting where we all introduced ourselves and learned the packing routine several of us met at one of the bars for dinner. After dinner we returned to our rooms to pack, repack and repack again then to bed. Tomorrow we kayak.

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark