Our optional extra day is truly extra-ordinary, please take a look below.
As this photo taken by Ingo shows the extra day visiting Grizzly Bear Lodge includes a trip to the Kakweikan River and a day with Trapper Rick and a visit to his cabin. The cabin is a half-hour truck ride over logging roads and then a fifteen-minute hike through the coast rainforest. This past summer we had excellent grizzly bear viewing at the falls below the cabin. This is one location that has no visitors except for the loggers and the guest from our lodge, a true wilderness river.
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.
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.
Great photo of a bald eagle coming into land on a salmon carcass on the Glendale River. The eagles leave other parts of the BC coast to congregate at river mouths in the fall when the spawning salmon return. The eagles arrive shortly after the grizzly bears and for the same reason, free and easy food. Grizzly Bear Lodge’s spring and fall tours spend time on one Knight Inlets rivers which has the sedge grass for grizzly grazing in the spring and the salmon in the manmade spawning channel in the fall.
Pacific white sided dolphins travel in groups that are between 50 to 200 but on occasion will reach numbers of up to 2,000. These dolphins can travel quickly reaching speeds of up to 45 kph (30 mph). They are acrobatic with airborne flips and leaps can reach extreme heights. Like all dolphins they like to ride the bow wave of a boat and stick their nose into the prop wash. The best way to obtain a good photo is to spend twenty of thirty minutes in their presence and constantly take pictures and to hope there are some goods ones when you do your editing in the evening back at the lodge. All our day trips whether to the grizzly bears, whale watching or Trapper Rick’s often encounter pods of white sided dolphins.
The old stumps such as seen in the above photo are found along the road to the grizzly bear viewing stands, on the forest walk on the extra day spent at the “wild river” and on the walking trail behind Grizzly Bear Lodge. The notches cut into the stump, on the right, were for the springboards used by hand loggers. These boards were to raise the loggers up the tree trunk to an area that was narrower than at the base were it would take less time to “fall” the tree. Remember that hand logger means the long two-man hand saw using “armstrong” power and not motorized.
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.
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.
Bald Eagles are frequently sighted in our area. At times they can be seen in large numbers. This is usually where food supplies are high. For example this could be in areas with high concentrations of baitfish or along the rivers in the fall when the salmon are spawning. They are not migratory, but do move around with the food supply. As mentioned earlier when the salmon are spawning we often see many along the rivers, while there will be fewer along the coastline. With little need for camouflage their white head and tail feathers can be spotted easily. The female is slightly larger and her white head extends down a bit farther onto the body, but it is subtle. It takes these birds 4.5 – 5 years to acquire this unique plumage. As juveniles they are a brown colour. With exceptional eyesight and the ability to view 270 degrees they are understandably often seen in high perches and in trees near points and passageways.
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