October 11
Good Morning
I returned home from my trip to the Chilcotin Plateau in British Columbia yesterday. I drove to Bella Coola on the British Columbia coast first and stayed there a few days. Then I ventured back up to the T’sylos Park Lodge on the Chilko River for a week of photographing grizzly bears. The bears are attracted to the Chilko River at the mouth of the Chilko Lake by the spawning salmon.
The salmon have travelled all the way up the Frazer River to the Chilko River around 600 km and 1300 meters in elevation. The estimate of salmon for this year is 850,000, which is about normal.
We would get up each mooning for a 6:45 am breakfast and get in the fly-fishing boats around 7:15 am. We would stay out on the river until about 12 and come in for lunch and a rest. Back out again at 3 pm until 7 pm and in for supper. After supper, we would download our photos for the day and then off to bed early to do it all over again the next day.
During the week we saw about 30 different bears. One morning session we saw 22 bears four hours, with about 15 visible at one time up and down the river.
This year there were more cubs of the year (coy) than previous years. The first coy we saw were these three. We saw them several times during the week and they were always a highlight. The smaller one with the white face was always putting on a show.
I will share these images of them from the first morning. I have about 12,000 images to go through so it will take a while to get through them all. Maybe the first will be the best.
Stay Well
