“What's that!?” is usually the first thing you hear, closely followed by “What!?..” and/or “Where!?..” then of course you get “There... in the woods... that dark thing... I thought I saw something in the woods!!” and then without a paws (intended!!) it generally goes...
“IT'S A BEAR!!!!!!”, then you get “WHERE??!!!” from several directions and then perhaps “Awww I can't see it!!”, then “THERE!! behind the trees!!” and ultimately it gets a great deal louder and more urgent as the tyres start to screech and smoke and the back of your drivers seat gets ripped up from its anchor once again... “IT IS A BEAR!! IT IS A BEAR!! I CAN SEE IT, IT'S A BEAR!! IT'S A BEAR!!, QUICK!!, STOP THE CAR!!!!!”
So... this is what you may get a glimpse of if you're very lucky... and BOY... were we lucky!
I apologise in advance if you don't like bears, because the whole of this chapter is about bears! There are approximately 300 Black Bears in Jasper National Park, and we were lucky enough to see 16 of them on our trip to The Rockies. Here's the tales and pictures behind one or two of them. I took hundreds of pictures and Linda took hours of film so we had to leave out loads and loads of images just to give you a flavour of what we encountered.
“You won't see any bears at this time of year!” I was told by one or two people, “It's too early! You need to go at the end of August, or September when they're getting hungry and ready for winter and don't expect to see any cubs 'cos the mothers will eat you alive and display your head on a spike by the side of the road if you go within 3000 miles of their cubs!” So... I didn't expect to see any.
You know there's something by the side of the road up ahead because driving through the mountains is a somewhat solitary experience. You're amazed if you see another vehicle at all so when you see several of them ahead of you, all parked, well... more like abandoned really, by the side of the road in front of you, you are pretty certain that there is some form of wild animal to see. As you approach the gathering paparazzi of far eastern tourists climbing up on step ladders, onto SUV roofs, on top of each other, or their children, or each others children, you can be forgiven for thinking that you may actually be about to witness the second coming of The Lord himself, in the flesh, right there in front of your very own eyes. How the animals manage not to eat at least one small person from each party just for fun is way beyond me, and that's just when it's only a Gopher, or a Deer!
So when they've spotted something like this below...
...Forget it! You may as well stay in your car, climb over the back seat and snuggle up beneath the coats with your Bovril and your Graham Crackers because you could be in for a very long wait. You just sit there, or lie there, hoping for one of two things to happen. 1) The Park Ranger comes along and fires his gun to scare off the bear(s) and then threatens to arrest every one unless they disperse their abandoned vehicles, or 2) the bear flips its lid, bites the head off a small eastern child and plays keepie-uppie with it until everyone runs away screaming and vomiting. Either option will do for me on these occasions but sadly, the former usually wins.
Far far better is when you make a deal with your fellow travelling companions that the first person to spot a wild bear, gets $100. That way, you get to see the bears first and take one or two pictures and you can enjoy the moment, alone with your bear(s) before the other road users spot you and start to descend like Starlings around a crusty slice of Nimble.
Sarah was first to score the dosh when she spotted him:-
Linda spotted Her, and Him, and Her among many others.... including a mother and cub on the same road as our cabin when we returned on foot from Jasper town centre one lovely evening. We did that walk a number of times as well as others just in case we spotted something, and because it was just fabulous to be out in the open surrounded by such marvellous beauty. Even if we did get mouldy socks!
Katie Spotted a mother bear foraging in the woods with Him! On our last evening in the mountains.
We'd eaten dinner and decided to go on one more spotting trip before it went dark... we got lucky one more time AND the youngster even climbed up a tree, right in front of us!! Now that was special...
and I spotted Him...
...on the Maligne Lake road one afternoon:- and Yes! I did get a little too close to this one and had to retreat back to the car blushing and twitching a bit before he/she warned me off! Sorry Bear... Sorry Linda, Girls, Mum and Dad... Oops...
The Buffalo Berries are what brings the bears down from the mountains. They gorge themselves on this fruit in readiness for winter hibernation. They are part of a family of plants called Shepherdia and these in particular are Shepherdia Argentea, or Silver Buffaloberry or Bull berry or Thorny Buffaloberry.
Sometimes all you can see is the bush waving about in front of you as the bear feeds itself, then you may spot an ear... or two.
A fully grown Black Bear can eat up to 250,000 of these berries in a day. Yes... 250,000 berries! That's why it is possible to watch them and film them at this time of year because they are so busy eating that they just aren't interested in you. As long as you don't get too close of course. That amount of berries is about 35000 calories, equivalent to eating more than 85 quarter-pound cheese burgers. Think of that every day for a month... Apparently, Buffaloberries are edible by humans. They are supposed to be quite sour though and can leave the mouth a little dry. Not to mention how dry your mouth would be from trying to steal these little beauties from the bears, and then having to run for your life :-)
After a mild spring and summer this years crop was a few weeks early and somehow, the bears know that. So they came down from the mountains early. Well.. I actually prefer to believe that they came down just to say “Hi” to us...
They are truly beautiful creatures and it was such a pleasure to watch them go about their business. The grown ups are fascinating but when you see a cub, it's such a special display of subliminal communication between mother and child that it's hard to explain.
As well as eating of course, the child wants to play and Mother allows the child to play until such a time that she feels it's time to move on or to concentrate on the matter in hand, gorging. The fur coat is so rich that you can see it ripple as she walks along and stretches to grab hold of a branch. Her eyes are so clear and every now and again you find yourself looking straight at each other as if she's letting you know, that she knows you are there.
Meanwhile the baby turns over rocks and stones to see what's underneath and digs in the soil for grubs, then switches attention to a branch of berries, then chases a flying bug, then takes a swipe at his sister to gain her attention in the game and then they both panic when they realise that Mom has already walked off and they scurry after her only to throw themselves at her feet and offer up a paw for her attention as they roll on their backs.
I'd like to point out that we were actually stood well away from these three,
we watched for around 20 mins as they fed and played but what you can't see in the pictures is that we were on the the opposite side of the road on top of a 40 foot bank, behind bushes, so we were safely out of the way at least from these three. This was along the road to/from Miette at around 18:00 one evening after we'd been up to see the Hot Springs.
We saw an incredible amount of wildlife in Canada and I will be eternally grateful for having the opportunity to see it all and I will share some of that with you in later episodes.
For me though... absolutely nothing can compare to how I feel about having had the privilege of watching these beautiful and fascinating bears, just doing what comes naturally, going about their daily chores, in their very own back yard.
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