Bear Creek

There’s a small creek on the other side of the river. It’s only a six minute canoe paddle from the cabin. Salmon use this creek to spawn (much like just about every creek in this area), and black bears use this creek to chase salmon, eat berries, romp, and wander.

I have spent the last four days sitting at this creek, documenting this activity. I’ve tried a variety of techniques to capture the perfect bear footage- close up video of them catching fish, crossing logs, and playing in the stream. One day consisted of 7 hours, hunched in a tuft of grass, swatting masses of mosquitoes, waiting and watching, and manually recording from afar. Another day included six roundtrips in the canoe, setting and leaving small video cameras, and returning to swap out batteries and memory cards every 2 hours. Some days saw 5 or 6 bears, active and feisty, others saw just one, wandering casually down the stream.

Sitting at this creek demands a remarkable disparity of emotions and responses. It is peaceful and chaotic, boring and exhilarating, tense and tranquil, frustrating and rewarding. One morning I crouched in a patch of thorny raspberry bushes for two hours with not even the sound of a far off branch break to indicate a bear. That afternoon it was 45 minutes before I could access the camera traps to replace batteries; a juvenile was practicing his fishing skills, pouncing and splashing in the stream in front of me, completely unaware of my presence.

I am on high alert from the moment I step out of the canoe until I am rowing away again. It is a heart-thumping experience to watch this elegant predator just 15 feet from you, and it can give you quite a start if you don’t notice the approach. Don’t faint, grandma, these bears are not looking for trouble. They are fat on salmon and leery of humans. This vigilance has roots more often in seeking great footage than in my personal safety. Their eyesight is poor, but if they catch my movement, in an instant they are running for cover. But more often I stay hidden from view and the bear goes about living with no knowledge of my existence, except to sniff, pick up, and play with one of the cameras, curious and intrigued by the appearance of such a strange item in his home.

One moment, particularly, will stay vivid in my memory. I was standing, knee deep in the frigid glacial runoff, partially concealed by a few outstretched branches of an overhanging tree, placing a camera for a beautiful wide angle view upstream. The waterproof housing latch was giving me trouble, and I allowed too much of my attention to consolidate on the problem. When I looked up again, there was a large female black bear on the opposite bank, less than 20 feet away, staring intently into the eddy below her. I froze, holding three dead camera batteries (oh how I wish I had a charged camera in hand!), as she deftly dropped both paws and her snout under water and pulled up a flailing fish. With her flapping feast held proudly in her jaws, she ambled under a large cedar tree to dine. A few bites in, she either heard me or simply decided she was too exposed and, again with her dinner clenched tight in her teeth, she expertly scaled the cedar and settled comfortably in the nook of a branch 40 feet in the air. I watch for a few more minutes, then snuck quietly around the bend and out of sight. While I sincerely wish I had a long lens camera with me and regret that I couldn’t film the great catch, one of the preset cameras did capture her proud jaunt and graceful climb. You can see her silhouette come into the frame on the left side. (sorry for the poor quality, blogspot will not let me upload the original HD video. I will try to post a better one in youtube and link to it later). 

When I’m not busy and/or bored at Bear Creek, I’m maintaining the plane’s camera rigs, dumping and organizing data, charging batteries, talking to the camera, filming salmon, and helping Trip, the primary videographer, set up shots. We are now wrapping up our west-of-the-mountains segment of the expedition, and will be heading east, onto the mainland, over the coastal mountain range, and into BC, for the next set.