September 14, 2014 – This week was an interesting week work-wise. The fall programs at work are getting underway and my favourite time of year, field season, is getting into swing. Last week I was up on the Upper Pitt spawning sockeye. This week it was a flight to Bella Coola to visit a project I work with and make some time for some Chinook spawning.
First off, the flight up. Honestly there is no flight I’ve taken that humbles me to the majesty of this province like that flight on a clear day. It’s just magnificent. On the flip side, I definitely notice a decrease in the snow and ice on the mountains since the first time I made the trip.
When I got to Bella Coola I got off the plane, and the fellow who sits at the desk next to me in Vancouver, got on and headed home. A quick drive to the hatchery and then out for a badly needed lunch before heading out on the creek to do some fish counts with two of the hatchery guys.
I have lived in BC my entire life, and I was born and raised in the centre of the province (or the North as people in the Lower Mainland tend to call it). But I had never seen a grizzly bear until last fall when I came up for the same reason. And it wasn’t long that day before we happened on a number of fresh bear tracks.
As we walked Snootli Creek we rounded a corner and noted a disturbed and silty area of water, and a wet area on the bank. It appeared that we’d disturbed a bear but it had vacated before we happened on it.
Thursday morning I arrived at the hatchery to go out on the Lower Atnarko and Denis pointed at the computer screen. A photo of a sow grizzly climbing out of one of the concrete ponds, with a cub, was on the screen. The bears had gone through the electric fence and taken a number of brood fish. I am told that throughout the rest of the day John ran out of rubber bullets trying to keep her away. A new, more robust and stronger electric fence was installed and when I left at the end of the day Friday it was still holding.
I am very familiar with black bears and while I have respect for them, I am relatively comfortable around them. Grizzlies are another story. There are few to no black bears in the Valley at the moment since the grizzlies have come down for fish. Grizzlies will kill and eat black bears, so the smaller species tends to clear out and go up high to forage on berries and other food.
I helped out for a day on the Lower Atnarko last year and we had some large visitors. That was a thrill for me as I’d always wanted to see grizzlies in the wild. They were close, but at a still respectable distance.
This time we had a sow with three cubs, and a second sow. And they got uncomfortably close this time. Additionally there were fresh tracks from a very large boar on the sand. Lawrence measured the tracks at 7.25 inches wide and declared it a “very big bear”.
I stuck close to Lawrence for the rest of the day….
After a few sets and spawnings, we stopped for lunch. As we were about to sit down on the gravel we decided to move the cooler of eggs out to the water’s edge, and that was probably a wise decision as shortly after that a large sow nosed out of the bush and began to take away the spawned out carcasses we’d left behind. She took them into the bush for her cubs and they sounded like a dysfunctional family in there, snarling and fighting over the fish.
One by one she came and took the fish, getting terribly close, within 30 feet of where we were. We stood up and gave a bit of ground, particularly as the cubs began to get a bit more confident and came out of the brush to feast on the remaining fish we’d killed.
Meanwhile another sow came up the other side of the river and took a few of the bucks we’d left on the edge of the river after spawning them. It was a bit unnerving being between them all.
Eventually they moved off and we moved on down the river to continue out net sets.
Friday I went up on the Upper Atnarko crew, and although we didn’t see any bears, we did hear one in the brush not far off of one of our set spots.
I hadn’t been up to the upper river before, and it was a beautiful area, so scenic. Fish were fewer up there, and we made a lot of sets with little success. The terrain was more challenging and steeper, and that was almost a problem for me.
I am used to killing my own fish. After a few years working with bigger fish, I have a decent ability to dispatch them. I had just untangled a big female which was ripe and had a tailer on her. I was hauling her up the beach looking for a club (no one remembered to bring a proper one so we were relying on thick short branches) when one of the guys finished killing his fish and turned to me. He indicated he’d club it for me, so I held it away from myself for him to hit.
The first strike connected well, and he drew back for a second crack to ensure he’d killed it. I remember thinking “There’s something not so smart about this situation…” He recalls thinking “I hope I don’t miss…”
Both my knees are somewhat bad. One I wrecked in a skiing accident 30 years ago. The other probably just wore out because I favoured the bad one.
With a solid thud the club slammed into my “bad” knee.
Man that hurt!
I was like a wounded animal and raised my foot up off the ground for a few moments. I wasn’t sure how bad it might be, and I remember looking up at the steep bank and thinking “How the heck are they going to get me out of here if I can’t walk the rest of the river!”
The poor guy was mortified. He was so worried about me, and I think a little about himself too. A number of the crew are seasonal workers, the government only allows them 90 days of work a year and the union favours others over them, even though they have many more years of experience on the river. After “Are you OK?” the next question said jokingly, but I think with some seriousness, was “You aren’t going to file a grievance, are you?” Honestly, why would I do that, it’s not like he meant to wallop me!
The first thing I said was “Here, kill the fish first!” Then I gingerly put my foot down and was surprised that my knee held my weight. I don’t even know how that was possible considering the force it had been hit with.
Amazingly, it held up for the rest of the day on the river, though it was tender and I was cautious when walking through some of the faster water. I expected it to be swollen and purple the next morning, and even now, two days later, I can’t believe that not only does it not hurt anywhere, there isn’t even a bruise. It has the occasional feeling of oddness, a bit of stiffness once in a while, but basically, it’s fine!
So, it was a good work trip. I met some new people, saw some bears, netted and spawned some fish, and came out surprisingly unscathed.
And I was glad to have been out on the river with my mind and body occupied because Friday would have been Mom’s 75th birthday. I knew it would be a tough night alone in the hotel, and I wasn’t wrong. But if Mom’s atoms were floating around, I know she’d have been glad I didn’t get eaten out on the river. 😉
Saturday I killed some time before flying out by driving down the full length of the Valley, watching a grizzly bear chase fish in the river, and taking some time to visit the estuary at the mouth of the Bella Coola River. The weather was stellar for the entire trip and my flight home was as gorgeous as my flight in.
Can’t wait to visit again.
I took a LOT more photos than are in this post. I’ve posted them in Flickr, with the entire set here.
Or, if you just want to see all the grizzly bear photos, those are in a separate set here.
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