The Lodge

The common loon has a unique eerie call that echo across lakes and bays of the northern British Columbia coast. Once you have heard this call it will never be forgotten. In the summer adults are regally patterned in black and white. The Canadian one dollar coin is called a “loony” because of the engraving of a loon on the coin. Belted Kingfishers spend much of their time perched alone along the ocean shore searching for small fish. These ragged-crested birds are a powdery blue-gray; males have one blue band across the white breast, while females have a blue and a chestnut band. The kingfishers are common around the lodge but very hard to obtain a photo of one, as they tend to fly quickly along shorelines giving loud rattling calls. The “common” loon is less common when one wants a photo. Loons are in most of the small bays we pass through but last summer it took two guides five days for a guest to get a good photo of a loon which was an important part of his “bucket list” for his trip to the lodge.

This Common Merganser is an adult female it is a large, heavy-bodied diving duck with a long, slender orange-red bill and a chestnut brown head with white chin patch. The photo was taken in the mouth of the Glendale River were families of these ducks are common in the spring. The bald eagles are abundant along the coast and will often hunt ducks. It is interesting to watch the eagles in action. It takes two eagles to constantly dive at the ducks until they tire and spend too much time on the surface were they can be caught by the eagle. One of our guides and guests saw an eagle catch a blue heron that was not paying attention. The eagle caught the heron on floating kelp and managed to get it to shore about ten meters (yards) away. Bald eagles can lift up to half their body weight, around 1.8 to 2.3 kg (4 to 5 pounds). Although blue heron are a large bird a national geographic website says that the blue heron is 2.1 to 2.5 kg (4.6 to 7.3 lbs.) so it is possible to lift the heron a short distance.

Many of the lodges guests have an interest in birds and ore often better at identifying the great variety of water fowl than their guide. The next three posting will provide photos of some of those more easily photographed. The great blue heron as a common sight in the coastal water of British Columbia. There is normally a heron on the small breakwater in front of the lodge the morning as well as along the shores on all the tours. This photo was taken on the Glendale River while watching the grizzly bears. The cedar waxwing started to appear around the lodge several years ago as were are in their summer or breeding range.

Once you have read the description below the map can be enlarged by clicking once on the photo and then once again and the photo should take the full screen.

The above photo is a selection taken from Google Earth that shows the Glendale River estuary in the upper left corner of the map. The river estuary is about 42 kilometers (26 miles) an hour and fifteen-minute boat ride from Grizzly Bear Lodge. Upon arriving at the river mouth the boat is tied to a float which is indicated by the yellow dots in the extreme upper left corner. Once at the float a flat bottom skiff is used to get to shore and the truck, which is used to drive to the spawning channel. The road runs along the estuary and the river past the base of the hills in the lower left section of the map and then curves to the green dot, which is a bridge over the Glendale River.

The zig zag line of trees are along the edge of the man made spawning channel.  The road pass beside the top (right) edge of the last finger of the spawning area and then across and past the curves of the rest of the channels to the first red dot which is the first viewing stand.  The second red dot is the stand normally used by Grizzly Bear Lodge. The area between the two red dots is a finger of land with the natural river on the right side and around the end of the finger to the holding pool on the left (top) side.  The salmon holding pool is a result of an aluminum weir or small dam at the entrance to the spawning channel. This may be raised or lowered depending on how many salmon have entered the channel. The second stand is the preferred viewing area as there is an unobstructed view of the river and the holding pool and photos due not need to show the aluminum weir in the background.

If you go to “Pages” on the left and select  “Gogle Map of Lodge Itinerary” and click the blue icon on the right it will be “Day 3” and be the location of the map shown above.