On to the Great Bear



Over the Great Bear Rainforest



The Spirit Bear Lodge tour package with includes the flight from Vancouver to Bella Bella, the boat ride from Bella Bella to the Shearwater Resort for an overnight stay, then the boat ride to the Spirit Bear Lodge. The plane was just a little puddle jumper, 20 or so seats run by Pacific Coastal Airlines. There is no middle seat on this plane, all the seats are both aisle AND window seats! There is no overhead storage for your carry-on, in fact there is no room to stand up straight unless you are shorter than about 5’. There is no beverage service. The other things missing are; X-ray of your carry-ons, removing of the shoes and putting all your 3 oz liquids into a small plastic bag for inspection. We did have a larger plane on the return trip. The flight is about an hour and a half with one stop along the way flying over southern parts of the GBR.



Our plane



Bella Bella is a town of about 1,400 mainly survives on fishing, forestry and transportation being on the Inside Passage to Alaska. The Shearwater resort is about a 20 minute boat ride from Bella Bella. The Shearwater primarily takes in people going fishing and Eco-tourism. Being in the GBR it is a launching point for all kinds of activities. It has basic bed, refrigerator, shared bath and television.



Water taxi



There are four of us that are going to the Spirit Bear for the same reason, to see wildlife, bears in particular. We are all from the States; Washington, California and New Mexico. Lots of travel stories went back and forth, not too many from my side but lots from the other world travelers. Morning came quick the next day, one minute the sky was lightening slowly, the next minute the sun was blasting all of us, like a slap on the face. We all commented on the speed of the sunrise.



View from Shearwater





After breakfast we waited on the dock for our 90 minute boat ride to the Spirit Bear Lodge. The water taxis are the primary mode of transportation. They are made of aluminum and carry anywhere from 6 – 16 people; most of it enclosed with the aft being open for those that want to breathe the brisk salt air and take lots of photos. I was out there quite often during my stay. For the most part the trip to Spirit Bear Lodge is smooth, we are going between islands almost all the time. When we were exposed to the open waters of the Pacific the water had a bit of chop but nothing to worry about.



Taxi ride to the Lodge



The Spirit Bear Lodge is in the village of Klemtu in the center of the Great Bear Rainforest. It is located about 330 miles north of Vancouver and 370 miles south of Juneau, AK. Klemtu has a population of just short of 500 with most of the people making a living salmon farming, logging, transportation because it is also on the inside passage, or tourism for people like us that want to see the GBR. We found out later that this was their best year for tourism with over 180 guests. The lodge has 12 rooms with private baths, a small kitchenette and large windows overlooking a natural channel where the boats, whales and orcas come and go. There is no television set, which I didn’t notice until the second day of my stay. For those of you people that need to be connected to the outside world, there is internet and cell phone access. The tour package includes everything; transportation to and from the Lodge, daily trips to the different bear viewing areas, a daily hot breakfast, picnic style lunch, and chef prepared dinner. If you are hungry at any time it is your own fault. After dinner the guides talk about their area of expertise and Tim, the Lodge manager, meets with us to discuss what we saw that day and makes plans for us on where we will go the next day and what we can expect to see. The only things we need to bring are a sense of adventure, patience and lots of memory cards for our cameras. More on patience later (be patient).



Wellies




After arriving we met the people that will be taking care of us, signed a waiver about being out in the wild. We found the room where the rain jackets, pants and Wellies are stored, found the ones that fit, had lunch and were on our way to see the GBR.



Spirit Bear Lodge water taxis



Each day we got on one of the water taxis for the 90 minute ride to one of the inlets to see grizzly or black bears. A 90 minute ride is anywhere from 30 – 40 miles so we were covering a lot of area. It turns out that grizzly bears are concentrated on the mainland of Canada while black bears are concentrated on the islands although grizzlies are crossing channels to the islands. Black and grizzly bears do not necessarily get along with grizzlies taking over upon arrival. The main reason for the concentration of bears is the abundance of salmon that are born and return to the area to start the life cycle over again. The other reason I’m certain bears live in this area is the lack of humans and the respect the local people give the bears by not hunting or harassing them.

Salmon are essential to the entire food chain in the GBR. They feed orcas, bears, wolves, eagles, smaller birds, numerous other animals, insects and the forest itself. Some animals take their catch into the forest to eat and whatever they leave behind gets eaten by the smaller animals or breaks down and fertilizes the forest. Birds scavenge the leftovers along the water and other sea life feeds on the leftovers the birds miss.

Salmon farming is quite big here. There are some problems with salmon farming causing wild salmon to catch sea lice. In speaking with several of the local people and guides it takes a bit more management to keep the lice problem under control. Over logging is another problem. It breaks down the natural watershed by removing roots and other plants that hold the soil in place during the rains. They also remove shade the trees provide over the streambeds keeping the water cool for the salmon and cover for the other animals of the forest. Both farming and logging can be conducted; we just have to be smarter about doing it.

Our first stop is the Korich estuary, black bear territory. The 90 minute ride is very scenic, endless mountains, trees and water. I watch the sonar the skipper uses and see that the water is as deep as the mountains are high, 500 – 1000’ tall mountains and 500 – 1000’ deep water. As we get closer to the mainland we see snow on the tops of the mountains. Upon arrival we jump off the boat are instructed by our guide to walk slowly and quietly to our destination somewhere upriver. Our guide has a can of bear spray in case we come across a bear that has its eye on us but we are assured that none of the guides has ever used the bear spray in the 8 years of operation of the lodge. “Salmon are on the menu, not humans”. We follow a trail along the river, it is used by humans to see bears but it is also a trail used by bears to get from one part of the forest to another, although they are so big they certainly can make their own way through the forest, and who’s to stop them. The ground here is covered with moss, small plants and tree roots. The ground is softer than any plush carpet I have ever walked on. The scent of the pine and cedar is fresh. We see salmon swimming up river, not a solid wall of salmon, which can happen at the peak of the salmon run, but a continuous stream of a half dozen at any one time. You can see fins of the salmon as they are swimming up river in the video, below, but no bears.  Here is where patience comes in. Bears do not come out on command just because we have arrived. They live on their own schedule; they come to eat when they are hungry. We found comfortable places to sit amongst the trees and plant life to wait and watch for bears. The forest is not quiet here, river is continuously rushing by with salmon running up and birds flying back and forth picking over the food along the edges of the river. I am looking all over; from the river to the bark of the trees, the moss on the trees, the small, medium and large plant life and the shadows cast from all this on to other plant life and the river. I am so happy to be here, this is where I have been planning and wanting to be over the past 6 months. I stop every few minutes to look at the others to see if they see any bear activity before I go back to looking at all this wildlife. I shot many images during my time along the river. We stayed there for over an hour watching for bears but none came. We made our way back to the boat to try at the Bolin inlet.

The Bolin river is quite deep with no real trails to follow so we bushwhacked our way up river. The going was slow, the forest is very dense and the ground very soft. You want to go slow because if you try to walk fast and your Wellie sinks several inches into the mud you WILL pull your foot out of your Wellie.  You do not want to be standing in the middle of the forest with one foot in a Wellie and the other with just a sock!  None of us did that on this trip. I almost did it until I felt my foot moving and the boot staying put in the mud. It’s not easy bushwhacking when one has a backpack filled with camera equipment. I kept moving it from front to back depending on whether I was climbing over logs or crawling under logs. We made our way back down to the river, saw more salmon, but after another 45 minutes or so still no bears. We followed along the edges of the river to get back to the boat. I was quite nervous walking along a river with lots of rocks wearing thick rubber boots and carrying an expensive camera, especially on the first day of the trip. I was planning on how I would try to save the camera if I went in. I had visions of an arm sticking up out of the river holding a camera with the rest of my body being underwater. My other concern was to make sure I did not step into 18” deep water wearing 17” tall Wellies… think about it…



Reflections of waves on the underwater stones from water drops



We were not successful in finding any bears the first half day out. We were not disappointed, there is so much more to see!  It can only get better!

We got back to the lodge to get back into our regular clothing and have some appetizers, beer and/or wine and a wonderful meal including curried turkey, rice, zucchini, cole slaw, cheeses and guacamole, all this followed by dessert. Tomorrow we are going to Mussel inlet to see grizzly bears.

It took a while to fall asleep, partly due to the excitement of the trip, but mainly because it’s soooo quiet. No cars, sirens, motorcycles going by my window and no city lights lighting up my room.

There are 14 people at the Lodge at this time. There are couples from Italy, Netherlands, England and the balance from the US and Canada.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark