The ending well is who has the right to fish in a certain part of the river and once that was determined food became the main concern. From first seeing the grizzly bear cubs on the beach in the spring to watching them grow over the years the dominance fight is a common theme. And the common source of the fighting is who gets the first salmon from the mother to who has fishing right on the river.
If you check the white shoulder patch on the bear in this photo with the bears in yesterdays posting you will notice that these are the same bears. It was an interesting morning on the viewing platform with these two bears constantly play-fighting which sometime seemed to goes a little beyond the “play” part. But all is well that ends well…. more tomorrow.
The fall grizzly bear viewing starts after August 24th up the Glendale River. The viewing platform used by Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on a finger of land that has the natural river on one side and the holding pool or entrance to the spawning channel on the other side. This photo taken on the natural side of the river shows to sub-adult or juvenile bears have a disagreement…. more tomorrow.
Grizzly Bear Lodge opens in late May or early June depending on the bookings. The grizzlies do not depend on booking and start to appear along the shore of Knight Inlet by mid-May. On the grizzly bear watching day guest leave the lodge at 8:00 and have an hour and fifteen minute boat ride up the inlet to the Glendale River estuary. Any time in the last twenty minutes or so of the ride it is possible to see grizzlies on the shore and the first hour likely black bear. This photo of mother and triplets was taken in the river estuary and even at this early age one of the cubs is more adventuresome and off (if only a few meters) on its own.
On the whale watching tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge we are fortunate to view between eight and sixteen different humpback whales each trip. These whales spend their summer in our area feeding on the herring, which provides our guests with ample opportunities to watch them lunge feeding. In a lunge the humpbacks come up beneath a herring ball with mouths open as shown in James Kastelein’s photo. The baleen shown is a row of a large number of keratin plates attached to the upper jaw. These plates have a composition similar to those in human hair or fingernails. They are triangular in section with the largest, inward-facing side bearing fine hairs, which form a filtering mat. The humpback whale has about 330 pairs of dark gray baleen plates with coarse gray bristles hanging from the jaws. They are about 0.6 m (25 inches) long and 34 cm (13.5 inches) wide.
A Wikipedia quote “When spyhopping, the whale rises and holds position partially out of the water, often exposing its entire rostrum and head, and is visually akin to a human treading water. Spyhopping is controlled and slow, and can last for minutes at a time if the whale is sufficiently inquisitive about whatever (or whomever) it is viewing.
Generally, the whale does not appear to swim to maintain its “elevated” position while spyhopping, instead relying on exceptional buoyancy control and positioning with pectoral fins. Typically the whale’s eyes will be slightly above or below the surface of the water, enabling it to see whatever is nearby on the surface.
Spyhopping often occurs during a “mugging” situation, where the focus of a whale’s attention is on a boat rather than on other nearby whales. Spyhopping among orcas may be to view prey species. For this a spyhop may be more useful than a breach, because the view is held steady for a longer period of time.” And thanks to James and Wendy Kastelein for the great photo.
A mother brings her second year cubs to the edge of the river by the viewing stands while another grizzly bears stands in the background. They all have the same concern and that is a larger male grizzly further down river. Fortunately at this time the larger male did not proceed up river which gave the others a chance to come and feed on the many salmon. Most guests want to see the big male grizzlies and they are a magnificent sight but they tend to keep other bears out of the viewing area.
These photos provided by James and Wendy Kastelein of Australia were taken from the viewing stands on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. In the fall, after August 24th our grizzly bear watching takes place from stands overlooking the entrance area to Department of Fisheries spawning channel. The channel was built to improve the run of Pink salmon or humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). The males develop a pronounced humped back, hence their nickname “humpies”. It is the number of salmon that return to spawn every year that attracts the grizzlies to the area and as the photos show not always to eat. Once the sub-adult siblings have caught and eaten enough fish for the morning it often becomes playtime which can be more interesting than watching them fish.
James and Wendy Kastelein of Australia provide the photo taken on the evening black bear tour. The first evening in Grizzly Bear Lodge on Minstrel Island involves an evening boat ride to look for wildlife. Top on the list is a black bear. On this evening the Kasteleins obtained several good photos as this bear stayed on the beach ignoring us for food. Although there is not much boat traffic in the area the bears accept boats as part of their environment and as long as the boaters are not aggressive the bears are good for repeated viewing.
The bears of yesterday’s post may be siblings but the sharing of their catch is not an option. Even as cubs with their mother for the first two summers they did not share their mothers catch except with their mother and then under protest. A cub or sub-adult bear does not gain enough weight (fat) to survive the winter if it worries about another’s health.
Just like that another season has come to an end. We are grateful for all the wonderful staff and the guests this season. It was an excellent season and we are already looking forward to next May.
One of the highlights of the season was all of the new cubs out. It was awesome to see so many new cubs of the year and that is great news for our bear populations moving forward. We had great spring viewing and this continued through summer. On our river trips we started to see salmon arriving in August and enjoyed some great shoulder season viewing. The fish at the viewing platforms were a little late showing up this year, but viewing during late September at the platforms was great and the estuary viewing remained strong throughout the season.
Out in the whale watching world it was another year that saw large numbers of resident Orca who remained in the area right into October. The Humpback viewing was also great with large numbers feeding in Blackfish Sound. It is so amazing to have these magnificent animals back in our waters in such numbers.
Over the winter and spring we will be doing some repairs and maintenance. We rebuilt the front deck last spring, utilising cedar cut on site. We will continue with some siding, rooms improvements and hopefully a floating sauna ready for the start of our season.
2026 is already looking like a very busy season for us. We only have limited high season availability so please book early to ensure we have space for your group.
Looking forward to seeing you next year
Angus Reid
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