The bears move into the water and down river still looking for salmon. This mother and cubs are quite fat for this time of the season so their daily routine of walking the river in search of food must be a successful. Not that these pictures were taken with a point and shoot Pentax Opti 6mp 3X Optical Zoom I can only imagine the quality of the photos my guests obtained with their long lens camera and then again maybe we were to close.
The mother grizzly and cubs have climbed over the log and are about to enter the river just behind the boat. If you look over the previous photos in this series of postings you will notice the grizzly did not make eye contact by looking toward the boats – staring a bear in the eyes is a sign of aggression. And the guests were cautioned that it was ok to glance and take pictures but to avoid “bug eyed staring”. The mother had her head down while the cubs would occasionally glance toward the boats when a camera was making noise. …. more tomorrow
You my notice that both the guests head and the bear are in reasonable focus so the distance is close. At this point the mother grizzly bear was about fifteen meters or less than fifty feet across the river from the boat. Knowing the bears and their habits we were very safe in our location. These same bears had being coming down the river for about five days and had accepted the boats presence and as you may have noticed there was a larger boat ahead of ours and another behind, enough to make the bears very cautious…. more tomorrow
A beautiful fall morning on the Glendale River located on Knight Inlet, which is part of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. We had left Grizzly Bear Lodge at 7:30 for the hour and half boat ride up the inlet to the river. After taking Angus’s guest to shore for the SUV ride up to the viewing stands my guests climbed into the flat bottom river skiff for an estuary tour. If you check the Jan 1st posting “Google Map of Spawning Channel” it shows the yellow dot of the float and we went from there into the river and up past the tree line. At times pulling the boat over the sand bars and up the shallow river but as the tide came in we were about half a mile into the tree’s when we saw this mother and cubs coming down river. We had moved to the riverbank and I was standing in hip deep water holding the boat…… more tomorrow
This photo shows that grizzly bear cubs are often different colours and can be quite different in size even though they are siblings. The size difference is often a result of one being a male and more aggressive than a female. This means first to nurse and the first to solid food once they are on the beach in the spring. It could also be due to the fact that siblings may have different fathers as females will mate with multiple males. A genetically larger male may produce a larger cub. And the difference in colour is a result of the different mating partners. As the season progress and salmon become more of their diet the oils will cause the fur to darken but these are “spring cubs” and salmon are not in the rivers.
Driving to and from the viewing stands we drive slowly along side of the spawning channel for a short distance. This is a shaded area mentioned in Jan 5th post often contains allot of grizzly bears. The drive is slow enough to allow some good photos such as the one above.
This is the look of a determined grizzly bear. The photo taken from Grizzly Bear Lodge’s viewing stand in one of British Columbia’s best grizzly viewing areas. This river on Knight Inlet has a man made spawning channel, which attracts bears from a large area. The grizzly population will increase from a dozen bears in the spring to more than forty grizzly bears once the salmon have entered the river. This look is directed at another bear in the river, which is coming to close to a fishing spot. Fights that cause serious harm are rare as there is an abundance of salmon and the main goal is to fatten for the winter. Mating season is long gone so that tension is not present.
If you read the posting from Jan 1 about the location of the viewing stands when we leave the finger viewing stand we are required to back the SUV past the upper end of the spawning channel. We tend to do this quite slowly to enable some interesting pictures. This picture is of a first year grizzly bear cub sitting mid-channel waiting for a salmon actually waiting for it’s mother to bring it a salmon as first year cubs do not catch many salmon. This area would provide for many more great photos if it were not for the trees along the bank but these are necessary to provide shade so the water does not become too hot. If the water heats up it tends to hold less oxygen and salmon will suffocate. This happened this August as the temperature rose the water intake from Tom Blown Lake was not regulated correctly and there was insufficient fresh water into the spawning channel and hundreds of salmon died.
Excellent picture of two orca (killer whales) on a day whale watching in Johnstone Strait adjacent to Vancouver Island. Any photo showing the white eye patch or the white under belly of an orca is great but to have one photo showing both on two different killer whales is excellent. This female and juvenile orca are members of the resident or fish eating orca that spend their summers in the area near Telegraph Cove. This whale watching area is fifty minute boat ride from the lodge and contains a variety of marine life from orca, humpback whales, harbour seals, Steller sealions, dolphins, porpoise as well as bald eagles and a variety of ducks and gulls.
Grizzly bears that fish in the holding pool next to Grizzly Bear Lodges viewing stands on British Columbia’s Glendale River normally take the salmon to bank to eat because of the deep water in the centre of the pool. If you look closely there is another salmon by its front paw and several more in the water. Grizzlies fishing further up the channel often wound salmon, which later die and drift into the holding pool making it in ideal fishing area for the bears, which want to conserve energy. Bears are able to reach into the water and pull up salmon with little effort while grizzlies on the other side of the stand actually work for their catch.
Just like that another season has come to an end. We are grateful for all the wonderful staff and the guests this season. It was an excellent season and we are already looking forward to next May.
One of the highlights of the season was all of the new cubs out. It was awesome to see so many new cubs of the year and that is great news for our bear populations moving forward. We had great spring viewing and this continued through summer. On our river trips we started to see salmon arriving in August and enjoyed some great shoulder season viewing. The fish at the viewing platforms were a little late showing up this year, but viewing during late September at the platforms was great and the estuary viewing remained strong throughout the season.
Out in the whale watching world it was another year that saw large numbers of resident Orca who remained in the area right into October. The Humpback viewing was also great with large numbers feeding in Blackfish Sound. It is so amazing to have these magnificent animals back in our waters in such numbers.
Over the winter and spring we will be doing some repairs and maintenance. We rebuilt the front deck last spring, utilising cedar cut on site. We will continue with some siding, rooms improvements and hopefully a floating sauna ready for the start of our season.
2026 is already looking like a very busy season for us. We only have limited high season availability so please book early to ensure we have space for your group.
Looking forward to seeing you next year
Angus Reid
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