Situated in the Southern part of the Rockies, Banff is Canada’s oldest national park and its many stunningly beautiful sites attract thousands of visitors every year. In fact Banff town is one of the most crowded places I have ever seen. If you have a choice of when to travel, July and August are best avoided…
A Vast Variety of Wildlife
The Canadian Rockies are home to a vast variety of different wildlife, including elk (wapiti), white-tailed deer, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, coyotes and wolves, many species of birds, and, the holy grail for many wildlife spotters and photographers, bears.
Hiking in Bear Country
Whilst it is relatively easy to see bears (they can often be spotted alongside certain roads) being able to photograph them in a natural setting requires a lot of planning and an intimate knowledge of the animal.
Bears are fascinating, beautiful and amazing, but they are not teddy bears and can be very dangerous, even for those who know them well. Two different species of bear can be found in the Rockies, the black bear (ursus americanus) and a subspecies of the brown bear, the grizzly (ursus arctos horribilis). Their behaviour towards humans is very different and it is a good idea to be able to tell them apart in order to respond accordingly. Colour is not much help in determining whether you are face to face with a black bear or a grizzly, as both of them have coat colours that can range from blond, cinnamon, or light brown to chocolate brown or jet black.
The two most obvious identifying characteristics are the facial profile and the existance or not of a shoulder hump. Black bears have a straight profile contrary to the concave facial profile of a grizzly. Grizzly bears have a distinctive shoulder hump, which black bears are lacking.
All the bears we encountered during our stay in the Rockies were black bears, with the exception of one grizzly that we only just glimpsed as it disppeared into the roadside bushes. In Europe the chances of meeting a bear are virtually nil, but in the North American National Parks encounters do happen fairly regularly.
I must admit initially I was slightly disappointed that we never came across a grizzly during our hikes, but having spent a lot of time reading up on bears, bear attacks and their causes, it was probably a good thing that we didn’t just chance upon one. Grizzlies in the wild that don’t run away from humans have either learned to associate them with food, or they have been caught by surprise. Both scenarios are equally unenviable and dangerous even if attacks are very rare. Trying to silently approach a bear is infintely more risky than sneaking up to any animal in our European countryside. Chances are that the bear, feeling threatened, will attack rather than run off….. If you love bears and do not wish to put their life at risk (a bear that has attacked a human will inevitably be shot even if it was the human’s inappropriate behaviour that provoked the attack) photographing them is no doubt best done with an experienced guide.
A Chance Encounter
Having said all that, our longest and most memorable encounter with a black bear happened totally unexpectedly, on a short trail in Mount Revelstoke National Park, West of the Rockies.
Being face to face with a bear in the wild is truly awe-inspiring, my heart missed a beat when it first stepped out onto the boardwalk only a few meters away from me! I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the bear! For a few seconds we stood looking at each other, me rooted to the ground scanning it for signs of fear or aggression, the bear eyeing me up maybe looking for the same. Seemingly reassured that I presented no danger, it slowly turned and walked away from me.
Following it at a distance, I was able to observe it for a long moment as it went about its search for juicy berries and lush green shoots in the skunk cabbage marshes surrounding the boardwalk.
I was also amazed to see it scale a tree as quickly as a squirrel, although maybe not quite as gracefully and elegantly. The bear was totally aware of our presence, raised its head every so often, but seemed very relaxed about its growing curious audience.
After a while it disappeared into the leafy jungle on one side of the boardwalk, only to frighten the life out of father and son when suddenly re-appearing behind their backs in the parking lot a few minutes later! To their great relief a park ranger arrived at the very moment they started running for their life, which is of course the last thing you should do! Never run when face to face with a bear, not only is it hopeless, as bears can run much faster, but it may also trigger their hunting instinct even if initially they didn’t consider you as prey.
The park ranger wasted no time chasing the bear away, a precautionary mesure, to avoid it becoming too accustomed to human presence. It reflects the general policy of the parks’ management, which is to preempt conflicts by avoiding encounters between bears and humans as far as possible. Conflicts between bears and humans are rare, but the causes are very complex and vary greatly depending on whether one is talking about grizzlies or black bears. Anybody hiking in bear country will do well reading up on the subject beforehand.
More Squirrels
During our stay in Banff National Park we also came across yet another representative of the squirrel family. The Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellos columbianus), which, despite its name, bears a closer ressemblance to marmots than squirrels, seems to like alpine meadows, but is equally happy to turn stretches of campground lawn into a giant Swiss cheese.
