Gribbell Island is a 2 ½ hour trip by boat, almost 60 miles north of Klemtu. Our skipper, Charley, told us several stories of when he was growing up in Klemtu and how the elder’s word is law. It’s sounds harsh by today’s standards but they do not seem to have any discipline problems. We went in and out of fog along the way but by the time we got to our destination the skies had cleared. A 20 minute walk into the forest brought us to the bear stands, our destination for the day. There were nine of us today counting our guide. By 10:00 we were all set up waiting for bears to show. Some of us stayed down at ground level, others went up top. I set up along the side of the stand with a good view of the stream in either direction.
This is a stream, much quieter than the rivers we were along on the preceding few days. We talked with one of the Watchmen, a local First Nations person that patrols the area. He’d seen bears in the area but not a lot of activity. By the end of the day I noted that there were very few salmon running up the stream any more, probably the end of the season. Note how wide the stream is around us, maybe 25' - 30' across at this point, think about that when you see images of the bears.
We all took lots of photos of the area; the stream, forest, mountains and whatever else caught our attention then settled in waiting for a bear to show.
I started wandering around, not very far just in case a bear showed, when I saw people on the other bear stand jumping up and pointing cameras away from us further upstream, a black bear! I quickly walked back to our stand and whispered “bear” everybody at our stand jumped up with cameras looking in the same direction for a black bear. She wandered down stream between the two stands looking for something to eat but didn’t seem to have much luck then wandered off into the forest again. We all got a couple photos then settled in for the next bear sighting.
I wasn’t impatient, the last couple days of bear watching have taught me that, but I didn’t just want to sit around waiting doing nothing. I dug out my macro lens and started photographing the forest on a different scale.  |
| Hobbit hat? |
It’s a challenge changing the scale of what one wants to photograph. All this time I am looking for creatures two to three times my size at a great distance. Now I am looking for subjects anywhere from a couple of inches to a couple of feet tall. I shot a quite a few subjects, some came out, some not, but I had fun doing it.
Another black bear came out an hour or two later, again we all jumped up to photograph her. I say her because female bears are somewhat smaller and don’t seem to be bothered by humans showing up. We were told the males are larger and stay farther upstream away from human contact. She wandered across the stream and disappeared into the forest again.
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| Pine martin |
In the mean time a pine martin showed up at our stand. Everyone jumped up and was shooting photos as it went back and forth, up, down and all around. After it left our stand we saw the people at the other stand jump up and around photographing the same pine marten. That must have been the most photographed pine marten ever. Pine martens are in the same family as mink, otter, badger and weasel.
As the afternoon wore on everyone really relaxed, the warm sun and babbling stream was really working its magic. Our guide told us we have to leave at 315, bear or no bear. We were all still hoping for a bear to make an appearance close to us. 20 minutes before we had (were supposed) to leave a black bear showed up next to our stand. She was really looking for something to eat.
Fortunately salmon, not humans was still on the menu. She walked back and forth across the stream not more than 100’ from our location looking and looking for food. Finally when she was immediately across the stream from our stand she found a salmon. 
She took it to the opposite shore and promptly ate it right there. Shutters were clicking away like mad. Our guide kept telling us we have to leave; we only stayed about an extra 10 minutes because the bear had finished dinner and wandered back into the forest across from us. 
There were lots of smiles on the way back to the boat. On the way back to the Lodge we saw another four humpback whales swimming in the channel.
We feasted on boiled shrimp in a spicy sauce along with salmon and pasta as appetizers. We followed that with halibut, new potatoes, white beans in a sauce with peach kuchen and ice cream for dessert. I know there was more on the menu, I just can't remember it all.
Jason, our guide for the day, who is studying wolves in school, gave a presentation on the coastal wolves living in this area. Over the past few days I have seen wolf tracks, but no wolves.
Tim met with us again to plan out tomorrow’s itinerary; the Canoona River and the Khutze inlet, black and grizzly bear territory respectively.
I went for a short walk in town. It is very quiet, and mostly dark because of the lack of streetlights. I could easily see the Milky Way even in the center of town. There is a fair bit of activity in the homes with people coming and going. Everybody it seems owns a dog, or two, or three. These are not the little wimpy dogs someone can carry in their purse. These are DOGS, the kind a small child could ride like a horse. The kind that can go through 50lb bags of dog food if you’re not paying attention.
Thank you for stopping by,
Mark
:)
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