Day One: Notes from Bear Camp
Stay calm, be brave, wait for the signs.
Tom King, Dead Dog Café Radio Show sign off.
View from my tent along the deck of Bear Camp
Good morning from Chilko Lake. It’s 6:30 am and 7C outside. I’ve retreated to my warm bed to write. The office link reaches my tent which is awesome. The other thing that is awesome is my pee pot! I wouldn’t have slept much last night without it. But let me back up first.
I had Tent 5 all to myself
We had an amazing flight yesterday that took us up over BC’s coastal range of rugged mountains and streaky glaciers. What a view! Turquoise lakes lay like gems scattered in alpine pockets of bare rock. Streams flowed from the ice pack, spilling down the slopes to rivers held in narrow creases between mountain ranges. The rivers eventually flow into fjords that reach deep into the interior like crooked fingers.
The rivers below revealed routes for the salmon. It is mindboggling to think each fish knows which river and which branch then creek to follow to the exact place they were spawned two to three years ago. They only leave home once. They only return once – to spawn, to die, to fulfill their destiny.
Our first stop was Bella Coola on the coast. Our Aussie pilot did a sharp left turn and descended a long a narrow valley guided by the blue line of the Bella Coola River. I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie!
We had a 20-minute pause in Bella Coola before we climbed back on board, did a quick take off, banked over the ocean, and retraced our flight path between the steep green mountains slopes towards our final stop at Anaheim Lake.
Our plane on the tarmac Bella Coola Airport
Once over the mountains peaks the land flattened out as we headed east. Twenty-five minutes later we landed at Anaheim Lake. I love these small airports in remote locations. Each has its own character and characters.
Ryan, met us in a Sprinter van. He’s a classic outdoorsman who followed his passion for winter and skiing from Pickering ON to Jasper AB 20 years ago. Unfortunately, he is one of Jasper’s residents who lost his home to the recent forest fire. He told us he was home asleep when he was called to evacuate. Thankfully all 20,000 residents got out safely. One third of the town was burned to the ground by the wildfire. I can’t imagine the sense of loss. Ryan had just returned from visiting the townsite. He said the place reeked of burnt plastics. He was offered a studio apartment above a store in the part of town that is still standing so he can return to run the snow making/grooming operation at the ski hill in the winter. He’ll be one of our bear guides.
No sign of Grizzlies so far. We saw two black bears on our 2.5 hour drive in to the camp from Anaheim Lake. Two thirds so the trip was on a paved road. The final stretch was a teeth rattling dirt road.
Bum shot Black Bear
We are deep into the BC wilderness. Apparently, the salmon are coming but it is a small run with many obstacles in the way this year. The salmon in this region leave the ocean and enter via the Fraser River. The Fraser is 3C above normal due BC’s record-breaking hot summer. That’s hot for salmon. Furthermore, on July 30th there was a massive landslide where the Chilcotin River meets the Fraser River. The slide created a natural dam about 30 meters high and 600 meters wide blocking the Chilcotin River. Water pooled behind this natural dam, forming a lake that extended several kilometers upstream.
Chilcotin River Landslide
The situation remained dynamic for several days, with water continuing to build up behind the landslide dam. Local communities worried about flooding and prepared to evacuate. On Aug. 5th water began to flow over the dam. After 3 days of torrential flow, water levels stabilized. However, it was impossible to assess the impact on the salmon. Chinook are the first salmon to swim up the Chilcotin River and then the Chilko River where we were staying in Bear Camp. Brian McCutcheon, co-owner of Bear Camp, thinks the Chinook may have been wiped out by the force and the debris in the water when the dam was breached. August was unusually quiet at Bear Camp without the Chinook. Sockeye salmon follow the Chinook. Typically, they arrive towards the end of August. Grizzlies love sockeye. I love Grizzlies.
I hope the bears can read!
Half of our group arrived earlier via a different flight. They had some time on the water and spotted a grizzly in the distance. Brian described how some years there are 20 bears directly across the from the camp. Some even hang out under the deck our tents are on!
As wildlife photographers we have no control over when the bears show up, or what the weather will be. Brian outlined other activities we could do - hike, bike, paddle, kayak - silence from the photographers. We want to photograph bears. As the sun set many prayers went out calling the salmon in.
