“If it’s black, stay back
If it’s brown, get down
If it’s white, good night!”
So was this bear adage bestowed upon us by our river raft guide as he took us on a jaunt down the Bow river in Banff. Of course “black” is referring to the black bear, which as we discovered are very common through the mountainous terrain of the Continental Divide; the imposing mountainous wall of glacial jagged peaks that separate British Columbia from Alberta. Provided, you stay out of their way, a black bear should do you no harm. “Brown” bears, denote the grizzly, which is a different proposition given it dwarfs a black bear considerably. Apparently you shouldn’t run from a grizzly, you need to get down and stay still, presumably hoping for the best? Advice noted. “White”, then of course refers to their polar cousins, which if they have you in their sights there is no escape from death. Thankfully, although a good way north, we were still too far south for polar bears to be a problem.
I never imagined how prolific the bear population would be in Canada. I was quite happy just to see one. It didn’t take long for them to appear. On a raft jaunt in Banff, we saw our first black bear ambling along the river bank, not even expressing any kind of concern or bother for the half dozen tourists frantically catching it on camera. That was but a taste of course. Later on when driving along the Icefields Parkway, the main thoroughfare into Jasper National Park, the local black bear population seemed content with grazing road-side to welcome visitors. A large black bear greeted us a few kilometres shy of Abathasca Falls, and within a kilometre, a brown bear appeared sauntering along, with the demeanour and appearance of an oversized wombat. As we learned, this brown bear is actually a black bear, and not the Grizzly kind, so it was fine to photograph it from the car with the windows down. The presence of a grizzly and the car shields go up!
Jasper continued to amaze us with it’s curious bear population. Enroute to Maligne Lake, along the aptly named Malign Lake Rd, a mother and cub grazed. Our reactions of how cute, were met with concern when the cub decided to stand on its hind legs, showing that it stood nearly 6 feet. As I learned later a bear standing like that is typically more for curiosity and seeing whats around, rather than that of aggression. On returning to Jasper and our accommodation, we stopped behind a local ranger who had just walked back to her truck with rifle in hand. They had just scared off a juvenile grizzly bear. Would have been amazing to see it, albeit a little worrying. We of course did see even more bears, as we left Jasper and headed back down the Icefield Parkway and then onto the Trans Canada and back to Banff. The Bow Valley Park way in particular was a great side-road to spot both black and brown bears.
My approach in photographing these bears was to use a long lens of course, always the best option for wildlife anyway but naturally I wanted to keep my distance. It also helps having a patient driver to edge the car along slowly to obtain the best vantage point. One a couple of occasions I did leave the car and photographed over the bonnet, keeping car between bear and myself. The bears seemed placid enough, but the local advice is to steer clear of them and not get in their way, as they can still be dangerous. I use a fast shutter speed when photographing wildlife to keep things sharp, if the light is good, I’m happy using shutter speed priority. If it’s not good, then I flip to manual to control the aperture better, and balancing that with as fast a shutter speed I can get. Below are some of the bears I photographed.
All of my images of this amazing animal and Canadian icon are available for purchase and fine art print.
Why not have this curious black bear cub from Jasper National Park on your wall?