Happy Mother’s Day
To all the wonderful mother bears, we cubs love you and deeply thank you for all of your caring, loving, teaching, scolding, minding, playing and everything else you do for us every day. It’s only one day that has the title but you indisputably deserve the other 364 too (not leap year days though – sorry in my little world that’s reserved for my cousin Jeanette as it’s her birthday).
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A morning of fog and mist in the Khutzeymateen
One evening we watched a crab boat come down the Khutzeymateen Inlet and weigh anchor for the night. The next day there were some opportunities to photograph the vessel shrouded in mist. Against the massive trees of the rainforest and the steep valley walls, it looked almost like a toy.
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Mornings in the Khutzeymateen often find the coastline wrapped in blankets of fog while low flying clouds cling to the steep hills of the rainforest and the snow-covered peaks. The Grizzly Bears are the obvious draw but the landscape of this northern part of the Great Bear Rainforest is hauntingly beautiful.
Later in the day much of the fog burned off and when we sailed by the boat I was able to have a closer look.
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Spirits in the Khutzeymateen
The Grizzly Bears (Ursus arctos) rule the Khutzeymateen Inlet without challenge. In June, the boars roam the fields of sedge grass and the creeks that drain out of the mountains looking for females to court. The males are the kings but the mothers are the not only the queens, they are the heart and spirit of this land. With their cubs there is a tenderness and caring that is plain to see and wonderful to watch.
This mother and cub spent a couple of days along the beach near where we moored the sailboat and we were able to watch them for many hours. Here, they both looked up when a noise behind us drew their attention. A great mother raising a beautiful cub.
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A K’tzim-a-deen cub at rest
Bobbi and I just returned from the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary where Dan and Sandy hosted us aboard the Sun Chaser sailboat and we spent many hours looking for, finding, photographing, discussing and dreaming about Grizzlies. It was a magical experience and I have had little time to look at any images so far.
That said, this image of a cub resting on a rock is already a favorite of mine. Mom brought this two-year old down to the beach in the bay where Dan enjoys anchoring several times. They were both very relaxed about our presence, with the elder concerned only about Grizzly boars coming out of the forest edge. Her back was often to our little raft scanning the tree line as she ate the sedge grass. Meanwhile the cub, free from much – though not all – of this worry, watched us in-between explorations nearby, feasting on vegetation and mewling for milk.
Christopher Martin Photography 