Bear bonding: cameraman and bear reunite in British Columbia after a 13-year break-with unexpected consequences

摘要

She was going to be a big bear - much like her father, the dominant male in the area - the same bear that had killed her grandmother and left her mother orphaned so many years ago. It was raining again, hard. Standing on the bow of the 12-metre sailboat The Sunchaser, I thought how well the name fitted her. On the west coast of British Columbia you're always looking for the sun. Heavily wooded slopes rise abruptly from the ocean to snow-capped peaks 2,000 metres above. Uncountable narrow gullies and hundreds of broad valleys filled with towering hemlock, spruce and cedar giants funnel rain and ancient glacier water to the sea. Almost 13 years before to the day, my wife Sue and I stood on the prow of this very same boat. We were on our way into this remote coastal inlet searching for grizzly bears. I had only seen bears briefly in the wild and knew very little about them. It was early in our career, and we were making a film for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) about saving this temperate rainforest area as Canada's first grizzly sanctuary. We found grizzlies - lots of them.