Guest Photos

A wildlife photographer’s dream!

We offer fantastic bear and whale watching opportunities at Sailcone’s Grizzly Bear Lodge, your guests’ photos prove it!

Do you have your own photos to add from your stay with us? Please click here to email us!

Interesting Guest Photos

 

grizzly following mother
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After some time in the water the mother grizzly and cub moved up the beach toward the river mouth. One can see that the tide has started to rise and the beach is disappearing and this means that the bears will move up toward the shallower estuary and river mouth. Fortunately once we arrive by boat from the lodge we switch to a large flat bottom skiff which permits us to follow the bears as they move into this shallow area.  This enables good close up pictures from a stable boat, which allows guests to move about without fear of tipping or rocking. Yesterdays posted photo and today’s are just two of the many provide by Marc & Solange

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly teaching cub
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Mid-August can be quite warm in Knight Inlet’s Glendale Cove where we watch the grizzly bears as they come to the beach in search of food either protein from turning over rocks or the sedge grass that grows in the river estuary. The Cove is a one and a quarter hour boat ride from the lodge along the shore of Knight Inlet. The Glendale River mouth attracts grizzly bears that spend spring and summer feeding in the area and many are mothers with cubs. If you wore a fur coat in the summer you might want to spend some time in the water on a play date with mom. Marc & Solange visiting from France provided this photograph.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

wet black bear
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We followed this black bear as it swam and walked from one larger island to another about two hundred meters (yards) in distance. It swam one narrow passage walked over a small island, swam to a second small island and finally to the final large island where this picture was taken. Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on Minstrel Island partway up Knight Inlet so all tours are by boat through many small island and along the shore so it is not uncommon to see bears swimming. In a summer I will normally see three or four black bears swimming.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

swimming black bear
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Black bears are where you find them. This seems like the statement of the obvious but black bears tend to come down to the beach at low tide in search of protein made up of crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. Low tides occur at different times each day so finding black bears is not so much location but being near a good beach at the correct time. Day tours to grizzly bears, whales or to the wild river on the extra day in the lodge all provides opportunities to view black bears. The above photo by Marc and Solange from France was taken returning to the lodge at the end of a whale watching day when we came through a narrow channel and found a black bear swimming between small islands… More tomorrow.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

nursing grizzly
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Grizzly nursing 2

A most unique and interesting set of photos provided by Martyn and Viv Stucke who say “We took (the photos) while out with Glen last year on the 30 May. As you will see they are of mother feeding her three cubs, we gather from Glen quite a rare sight. We watched mother feeding on the rocks with her cubs playing around her for about an hour, she then took them up on the beach only about 50-80 m from us and fed them. The attached are a few photos of the cubs feeding.”  The late May and June tours are the time when the cubs first come to the beach with their mothers and are of course the smallest as they would be only three to four months old.
 

Grizzly nursing 1Grizzly finished nursing

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

banana slg
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Interest like beauty is in the eye of the “beholder”.  Many guests, including James, take pictures of these banana slugs, which are often bright yellow (giving rise to the banana name) although they may also be green, brown, or white. Some slugs have black spots which may be so extensive as to make the animal look almost solid black. The Pacific banana slug is the second-largest species of terrestrial slug in the world, growing up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) long, and weights of 115 grams (4.1 ounces). Banana slugs can move at 6 1⁄2 inches (17 cm) per minute.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

dolphind porposing
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Pacific white-sided dolphins are becoming more common in the waters between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. These dolphins are frequently seen on the grizzly bear tour and the extra day trip to Trapper Rick’s as they are on a whale watching safari. Often pods of several hundred dolphins will approach the boat and bow ride or come right up to the prop wash at the stern of the boat. Great Britain’s James O’Donoghue photo shows a few members of a larger pod approaching the rear of their boat having just departed mine.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

seagulls on herring ball
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A flock of seagull – who cares? Most guest do not care until they are whale watching and the guide explains the importance and then many pictures are taken. The importance is the herring and the diving ducks feeding on herring. The herring get into “balls” which revolve inside out as a means of defense and the ball is forced to the surface by the ducks and this attracts the seagull which in turn attracts your guide and more important the humpback whales. The result is shown on the March 3, 2014 posting showing a whale lunge feeding. As a guide I locate the herring balls with the help of the seagulls and then park the boat within a reasonable distance from the herring ball and wait. Thank you James O’Donoghue for another interesting photo.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

eagle feeding
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A variety of wildlife is found on all the day trips from Grizzly Bear Lodge and one of the popular for photos is the bald eagle. James has produced an excellent photo of a bald eagle coming into land to feed on a pink salmon in the river by the viewing stands. This is the ideal time for eagles as it is not necessary to hunt for salmon rather they can scavenge along the bank of the river. Many grizzly bears are selective in their eating of salmon leaving many partially eaten fish for the eagles. The riverbank becomes a buffet for the eagle, crow, heron and pine marten.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

follow the leader grizzlies
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The abundance of salmon mentioned in yesterday’s post is also the reason for the number of cubs we see from the viewing platforms. Although the grizzly bear count for the Glendale River area is more than forty-five bears, once the salmon have arrived to spawn, there are sufficient salmon to satisfy the hunger of all the bears. That is to say there is not much aggression between bears for fishing rights. There are three time slots for using the viewing stands, ours being from 10:00 to 12:00, for a total of six hours a day. The larger male bears are shyer and less likely to appear during this time allowing the mothers bring their cubs to fish and feed without fear from the males. As this picture from James O’Donoghue of Great Britain shows a mother and cubs coming for lunch.