Wild Adventures: Bute Inlet - September 15th 2011

After a two hour drive from leaving Telegraph Cove we arrived at our next port of call - Campbell River. After a restful nights sleep we awoke to heavy rain which looked as if it was not going to relent at all. Our forecast of approaching bad weather the day before had sadly been correct. This was not going to put us off, even though we desperately hoped it would subside.

So it was time for the next adventure, with Grizzlies again to be the focus of the day. Bute Inlet was our location for the adventure and similar to Knight Inlet involved a 2-3 hour boat trip onto the mainland. Bute Inlet is larger in size than Knight Inlet and involved traveling up some calm but potentially dangerous waters. ‘Eddies’ and huge whirlpools were visible, appearing as if someone was pulling the plug in the inlet which at some points plunged to depths of over 2000 feet. Mountain peaks soared high above and we could see in part one of BC’s highest mountains, Mount Waddington (4016m)

Traveling up the inlet we had a taste of ‘how the other half live’ - passing Michelle Pfeiffer's mansion and guest cottages along the way, accessible only by float plane of by boat and located in an incredibly scenic and remote location along the inlet. It just seemed pretty insane that this house would be occupied only for a matter of weeks during the year, yet was worth well in excess of $10m. If there was ever a place to escape the paparazzi this was most certainly it!

We arrived at the location where a minibus collected our group, from here is would be just 10 or so minutes before we would arrive at a series of viewing stands, located in prime spawning channels and favorite feeding spots of the bears.

We came to our allocated stand, which is where we would have around 3 hours to hopefully view bears. There was around 18 of us in total, which was a little bit of squeeze on the stand but was by no means a a huge problem.

Bear viewing, much like any other wildlife spotting is very much the ‘waiting game’, but we are both used to being patient and we are often rewarded by just staying in one spot and sitting it out. However, our guide was keen to move us around to maximise our chances, although in truth we would have been happy staying in this one spot but we ended up moving around 4 or 5 times, hopping on and off the bus to different stands.

To cut a long story short it turned out that today was not our day for Grizzlies and as our time came to an end we had not been lucky to have seen a Grizzly Bear. We were told this was actually incredibly unusual, given that the area is home to in excess of 40 Grizzly Bears and this had been one of the first tours all season that a bear had not been sighted. We both know and totally understand that sometimes thats just the way it works and nothing with wildlife is ever predictable so although a little disappointed we accepted that today the bears did not want to show.

On talking further with the guide it transpired that although sightings were very common he advised the actual numbers of bears congregating had been much lower this year and hardly any cubs had been seen in the 2011 season. This seemed to tally much with what our previous guide (Lindsey) had said about sightings at Knight Inlet. The Salmon run has been good this year, albeit a little later than normal (in contrast to two poor previous years) so you would have expected the bear numbers/sightings to have also been good as plenty of food was available. Whilst at the stands we had witnessed the multitude of salmon on their mission to spawn, it really was quite fascinating to watch this cyclical process in action. We discussed in-depth with our guide as to the reasons and we all concluded that there could be three main reasons for fewer Grizzly Bear sightings, all potentially being interlinked and contributing factors.

A late berry crop (and slightly later Salmon run) had meant that the bears could be staying further up in the mountain and not all yet progressing down to feed on the salmon yet.
Two poor consecutive Salmon runs combined with a terribly harsh winter for 2010/11 could have meant that many bears had perished and also less cubs had survived or not been born at all. In that the females were not strong enough to give birth or raise cubs (Pregnancy in a Grizzly can be biologically stopped by absorbing the fetus if the female has not formed enough bulk prior to winter denning)
An increase in logging in the spring (particularly near Bute Inlet) could have displaced many bears as they emerged from their winter dens.

However, even though we had not seen the Grizzly Bears today it was still a delight to see Bute Inlet and the truly outstanding scenery it has to offer. The weather had cleared for us and the vast wilderness and isolation of Bute was something to behold and again we vowed to return again, after all you cant have luck everyday and what a great excuse for us to return!

It was however not a bear free day as on the three hour return journey back to Campbell River we came across two separate Black Bears foraging on the shoreline as low tide approached. Huge Stellar Sea lions frolicked in coves along the way and surfed the whitewater around the swirling pools tossed us around on the boat. Proof that when you least expect it wildlife can appear anywhere!

The conclusion of todays trip meant that our time on Vancouver Island was now at an end. As soon as we arrived back in dock we ‘hot-footed’ it back with a two hour drive to the town of Nanaimo for the 8:15pm ferry back to Vancouver on the mainland BC. Here we would enjoy the last week of our Canadian adventure in Bella Coola.

Ridiculously long train en route to Bella Coola! (at least 1mile long)