by Keith and Heather Nicol
On Sunday
September 25 we decided at the spur of the moment to do a Grizzly Bear Tour
with Discovery Marine Safaris since they had space and many of their upcoming
tours are booked solid. These tours start in Campbell River and involve a 2
hour boat trip aboard the Kuluta to
Bute Inlet and the Orford River Valley on the B.C. mainland. In our group of 22
people there were a handful of Canadians with most people from various
countries in Europe including England, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland. Once we were on the dock at Orford Valley the
Homalco First Nations took over the tour and they provided buses and lookout
platforms for viewing bears in several different locations in the valley. Our
local guides were Janet and Herbie and no sooner had we stopped at our first
viewing area than Herbie reported seeing a bear in amongst some logs along the
river.
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| Two young bears negotiate some slippery logs |
We had been told
that patience is a key aspect of bear watching and it seemed to work since the
first bear soon headed off into the underbrush where it was out of sight. But a
few minutes later the first bear returned with another young bear and they began to
climb up on the logs and walk out over the river. After watching them intently for
some time, Janet and Herbie suggested heading to the next viewing area. But
just as the last people were about to board the bus, 2 more juvenile bears came out on
the other side of the river and began ambling toward us along the beach. These
bears occasionally reared up and wrestled with each other which was fascinating
to watch. One bear grabbed a salmon from
the river and headed off into the woods to eat it and the other bear seemed to
pick at some dead salmon along the shore before also heading into the trees.
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| Checking out a dead salmon on the gravel bar |
From there we
checked out several more “bear” areas but didn’t see anything. At one station
we climbed up on a tall stand and could look down on the salmon making their
way upstream to spawn. Sea gulls were everywhere taking advantage of all of
this “free” food from dead salmon that had already spawned. We then checked out
a nearby gravel bar and unexpectedly spotted 2 large elk! These elk watched us
for some time then even did some sparring with their antlers lowered at each other. After
a couple of jousting tousles the elk headed off into a stand of trees. Our
Captain John Lewis said that in all of his trips in here this fall he had not
seen any elk so we felt lucky to have seen them. On our way back to the dock we
saw another elk and then stopped for a bear that had just come down from the river
bank. We watched it amble along the river before it slipped into the underbrush
and disappeared.
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| Two large Roosevelt Elk locking horns |
Our return trip
featured amazing clouds layered against the mountains and at one point we
spotted a dall’s porpoise in the distance. We toured north of Quadra Island
this time and passed through a narrow slice of rock appropriately called “Hole
in the Wall”. Later we stopped over Ripple Rock which was blown up in 1958 to make
shipping safer in Seymour Narrows. Evidently explorer Captain George Vancouver called this section of water "one of the vilest stretches in the world". Thanks to Johanna Ferrie (naturalist), John Lewis (captain) and our
First Nations guides for showing this magical area. For more information on
Discovery Marine Safaris see: http://www.adventurewhalewatching.com/
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| Wispy cloud bands made the mountains even more photogenic |
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