Grizzly Watching

Grizzly Bears are magnificent and the biggest reason visitors choose our lodge!

Grizzly bears thrive here and the viewing opportunities are spectacular. We have operated our Grizzly Bear Lodge for decades and know the prime spots for bear watching. The ultimate grizzly bear photo opportunities.

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly brothers fishing
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The fall grizzly bear watching season in Knight Inlet starts on August 24th and at this time guests are permitted into the viewing stands on the Glendale River. The stands overlook the entrance the man-made spawning channel that contains over eighty thousand salmon as well as the natural river, which may contain several hundred thousand pink salmon over the season. This photo by Alfred Bittner shows two juvenile grizzlies, likely siblings, fishing side by side in the small rapids below the stands…more tomorrow.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly in grass
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Debbie’s photo of a grizzly bear sitting in the sedge grass of British Columbia’s Knight Inlet gives the impression of a “cute” little bear.  The “cute” may be lost when one realizes that the sedge grass in the spring is more than a meter (three feet) tall and that this is the same bear that was shown is yesterday’s posting.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly
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A classic grizzly bear pose is captured by Debbie Zygmunt in the Glendale River estuary. The spring grizzly tours up Knight Inlet view grizzlies in the estuary sedge grass and along the shore of the bay. Until the salmon arrive in late August the grizzlies spend their time turning over rocks in search of protein or grazing on the protein rich grasses. The bears of the area have accepted the presence of the skiffs used for touring along the shore and this provides ample opportunity for great photographs.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

shy grizzly
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The grizzly tour day for Ingo and his crew was successful. An hour and half run up Knight Inlet to the salmon-spawning channel on the Glendale River provide many good photos. This one shows a grizzly bear having a hard time making a decision. The decision is to go into the river and catch a fresh salmon or to save energy and eat one of the two at its feet? In this case the easy meal won. Later in the season when this bear has more bulk (fat) it will be more selective and go for the fresh salmon and likely only eat the row, skin and brain.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

fast dolphin
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Pacific white-sided dolphins can be found on any one of the lodge’s tours. Whether going on a whale watching safari, up the river with Trapper Rick or up Knight Inlet to view grizzly bears. These dolphins most often travel in pods several hundred strong and love to ride the bow wave of the boat or to follow in the prop wash of the motor. They will race the boat and leap up to three or four meters (ten to twelve feet) out of the water. A glassy calm day with the reflection of the trees just makes the photo more amazing.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

salmon spawning
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This is a photo that many guests try to obtain but are not always successful. The fall grizzly bear tours from the lodge travel 26 miles up Knight Inlet to the Glendale River and the man-made spawning channel. The viewing stands over look the entrance to the spawning area and there are several small falls prior to the weir and a large holding pool for the humpback salmon before they move into the channel. This is a salmon buffet and the grizzly bears love to come down to dine.  You can imagine the number of salmon (in the thousands in a small area) required for Ingo to get a photo of one leaving the water.

 

Guide Photos

grizzly family fishing
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The tours from Grizzly Bear Lodge start in May and run through the start of October and this passage of time allows the guides an opportunity to watch the bears as they change over time. The cubs appear on the beach in late May looking like the posting on April 8th and progress to the larger cubs in the April 10th posting until by the end of their second summer they are like today’s posting. The abundance of salmon in the river and good mothers produce a high survival rate amongst the cubs of Knight Inlet’s Glendale River.

 

Guide Photos

blue heron
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Although the great blue heron is common in the coastal water of British Columbia it does not mean it does not make a good photo opportunity. Most guest somewhere in their hundreds or thousands of photos taken while on tour from the lodge will have at least one photo of a heron. In this case the watercolour is as important as the heron.

 

Guide Photos

fishing grizzly bear
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Grizzly bears will patiently stand in the river and wait for salmon to swim up stream to the spawning channel. The viewing stands used by the lodge overlook both the natural river and the man made channel that leads to the entrance of the spawning area. The bears tend to grab the salmon with their mouths or to pin them to the bottom with a paw and then grab either way it requires waiting for the right moment to make a move. And from the look of this bear allot of concentration is required as they do not spent time checking out the click of cameras and only look up if there is a loud noise.

 

Guide Photos

grizzly caught lunch
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The sign of a hungry grizzly bear is the salmon it eats. Bears will get selective in their eating habits as they bulk up and consecrate on female salmon because of either high fat row (eggs). The salmon that return to the Glendale River which is the river Grizzly Bear Lodge use for its viewing in the fall are mostly pink salmon or humpback salmon. The males develop a pronounced humped back thus they are also known as “humpies”. The salmon in the mouth of this grizzly is a male so it has not reached the selective feeding stage. The other reason could be that it is the end of the season and this bear just wants that bit of extra bulk and does not have time to be selective.