Tag Archives: Knight Inlet
Juvenile Grizzly Bears Fishing
“Not all fishmen are created egual” this saying applies to grizzly bears as well as humans. Some bears seem to spend much of their time running and splashing in the water without catching many fish. But the key to their succes is the size of the bear. Although the two grizzlies in the photo appear to be three year olds they also look pretty healthy for this time of the year so their fishing style must be working.
Brown Bear Knight Inlet BC
Is photo by Tim O’Neil of a brown bear or a grizzly bear? It’s either or both, because these are common names that have no scientific basis. Grizzly bears received their name because their brown fur can be tipped with white. This gives them a “grizzled” look, especially when blacklit by the sun. All the bears in North America are the same subspecies except one subspecies that occurs in the Kodiak Island. The bears in BC’s rainforest are known as grizzly bears. The Knight Inlet grizzly’s colour ranges from a very light brown which is almost yellow in some bears and almost white in others to a dark brown which may appear black.
Spring Grizzly Bears
In the spring the grizzly bears we view on lodges wilderness tours are primarily grazers. They some down to the shores of Knight Inlet to eat the sedge grass which is very high in protein this sustains them until the salmon enter the rivers of British Columbia’s coast in mid-August. The morning grizzly bear tour uses 18 to 20 foot boats to travel up Knight Inlet to the Glendale River where we transfer to smaller flat bottom boats that allow us to drift along the shore to watch and hear the bears eating.
Grizzly Bear Bath
Some days the grizzly bear watching on July and early August are quite warm it is unlikely this was a “bath” rather think back on a hot day that you may have experienced and add a heavy fur coat. That is the likely reason mother and cub are in the water. They are in the Glendale River estuary which is a mixture of fresh and salt water so their coast will not contain allot of salt when dry. The sedge grass along the shore is the main reason for the grizzly bears to be in the area as the salmon to not appear until late August.
Black Bear while Whale Watching
Wildlife viewing is where you find it and many of the black bears we find are on whale watching trips. This black bear has done a good job of putting on weight over the summer. He is in good shape for the coming winter. This one was not going swimming rather was concentrating on getting more muscles and barnacles from the rocks before the tide rose.
The extra day and memories with“The Trapper”
If stay the extra night at our lodge the extra day is a river day spent at a “wild” river on a wilderness tour. Crossing Knight Inlet we travel the length of Thompson Sound to the Kakweikan River and spend a day with The Trapper. Rick has spent a good part of his life on this river and protects it with a passion. Grizzly Bear Lodge is the only lodge in the area with access to this river. The scenery on this part of BC’s mainland in breathtaking and the wildlife viewing provides a reasonable chance of grizzly bear sightings. Bears are often seen below the falls at Rick’s cabin or on the road to the cabin. Seeing a grizzly bear at Rick’s is a different sensation than see one from a protected viewing stand on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. Maybe that is why Rick always has “Rosemarie” with him. Who is “Rosemarie” that you will have to ask Rick?
Glendale River Knight Inlet BC
This is a scene of peace and serenity, the was picture taken by guest Debbie Zygmunt from the dock in the estuary of the Glendale River on Knight Inlet. The grizzly bear tours leaving Grizzly Bear Lodge travel for about an hour up Knight Inlet to the Glendale. We spend the morning and part of the afternoon viewing grizzly bears in the estuary in the spring or on the river in the fall after the pink salmon have arrived. A picnic lunch is served on the dock each tour at mid day. The pilings in the picture are located near the end of the dock supported the original landing for a logging camp the was on the shore up until the nineteen fifties. The shore opposite the dock has similar pilings from a salmon cannery that operated in the nineteen twenties.
Grizzly Bear Under Viewing Stand
A day trip from the lodge means we travel up Knight Inlet to the Glendale River. In the fall the viewing time in the stands for Grizzly Bear Lodge is from 10:00 am to 12:00 am. The stands being a 20-minute van ride up a logging road, which parallels the river. The grizzly bears have accepted our presence and tend to ignore the stands and will pass close and even under the stands. The key is no flashes on cameras, no perfumes or other scents on the watchers, definitely no food, talking in quite voices and no sudden moves. Although the bears ignore if we overstep the guidelines they will turn in our direction and stare to let us know “they know”.
Knight Inlet Black Bear Watching
This is not an uncommon pose to a black bear or even for a grizzly bear. Bears are on the beach in the spring because plant food is relatively scarce during spring and bears will continue to loose weight until well into June. Plant foods make up the majority of a bear’s diet (sometimes, as much as 90%). The black bears are kept from the salmon rivers by the grizzly bears so the beaches remain one of their main sources of protein all year. I believe
this “back to us pose” is because the beach slopes down to the water line and it is easier to roll rocks downhill.
