Australia’s Gary Wilson waited for the perfect picture, a humpback whale in front of the Steller Sealion haul out area. In this case the sealions are on their return from Alaska to California and spending a few weeks resting and replacing some of the fat used to travel this far. Large groups of sealions pass through the area in the spring and fall, however we now have several dozen that spend the summer in our viewing area. The humpback whales arrive in June and remain in the area through October due to the abundance of herring, which is their main food. A beautiful fall day for this well timed rare picture.
This grizzly bear is enjoying the berries from a back berry patch. Now that is not too interesting until you notice the metal roof in the lower right corner of the photo. This is the roof of the smokehouse that is 5 meters (yards) from the back door of Grizzly Bear Lodge and that grizzly is in our black berry patch. This became a problem and it took close to a week of very alert guides and guests until we made enough noise and believe it or not threw enough rocks to scare the bear off our island. The bear population in Knight Inlet is growing so the bear are starting to move out the inlet and even crossing Johnstone Strait to Vancouver Island. In the spring it has become more common to view grizzlies on the larger island around the lodge. There have been grizzlies on the lodge’s Minstrel Island in the past few years but the island is small and they were gone after a day.