"Being granted a passport to grizzly bear country"

I just had the pleasure of being granted a passport for another amazing week of Grizzly Bear photography with a great group of people on my latest workshop with Muench Workshops. The group of us were living amongst dozens of grizzly bears as they fattened up on thousands of spawning salmon in northern British Columbia. 

We didn't have to drive to see them, we didn't have to float down a river with limited time for Grizzly Bear Viewing, we actually spent a week at a remote camp, living with the bears and wolves 24/7. 

From watching bears walk through our camp, fishing for salmon just feet away from us, to enjoying males sparing in the river to mothers teaching first and second year cubs how to fish, we saw, and photographed it all... to two amazing viewings of a wolf pack as they walked in the hills and along the river by our camp.

One again, I was reminded that Grizzly Bears are a fascinating creature. 

The grizzly bear is the second largest land carnivore in North America. It has a strong, heavy body with an average length of 1.8 metres from nose to tail. It is distinguished from other bears by the large shoulder hump of muscle that supports its massive front legs, its extremely long front claws and the concave facial profile of its large head.

The grizzly bear's fur is usually darkish brown, but can vary from ivory yellow to black. It has long hairs on its head and shoulders that often have white tips and give the bear the "grizzled" appearance from which it derives its name. Its legs and feet tend to be even darker in colour.

It has extremely well developed senses of smell and hearing that compensates for its poor eyesight. Have you ever heard the saying, "the sight of a bald eagle, the hearing of a deer and the sense of smell like a grizzly bear"? 

Bears are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth. For example, the average dog’s sense of smell is 100 times better than a humans. A blood hound’s is 300 times better. A bear’s sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound’s or 2,100 times better than a human.

Bears acute sense of smell evolved in order to help them find food, mates, keep track of their cubs and avoid danger, particularly between competing individuals. Except for mother bears, bears are territorial animals that need to range widely to find enough food to sustain themselves. A bear’s sense of smell is so acute that they can detect animal carcases upwind and from a distance of 20 miles away. 

I hope we cross paths out in the wilds of Canada one day, 

Kev