A Hard Lesson Learned

A Hard Lesson Learned – Don’t Leave your Camera at Home!

Last Sunday Brett and I drove into civilization, a city called Campbell River. To get an idea of how far away we live from tall buildings, exhaust polluting vehicles and shops; we live in a small village called Gold River (population approx. 1500) and the nearest city –Campbell River – is about 90 KM away, for the Americans that’s about 55 miles.  The drive takes around an hour and ten minutes, give or take depending on who’s driving and the weather conditions and runs through Strathcona Provincial Park...in other words, the wilderness. Along the way we saw 1 bald eagle, 1 deer, 4 elk and 3 bear! But wait, that’s not all! The first bear we saw was on the side of the road and we sat for nearly an *hour* watching it. Brett got out of the car and called it and it actually started coming towards him (until I screamed, yelled and pleaded for him to get back in the car!). At one point the bear was so close to us I think it was touching the front of our car and I could even hear it grunting. Somebody else who stopped gave it an apple which isn’t as nice as it sounds, these bears will get accustomed to humans if they’re fed and cause trouble. Okay, so we’re thinking how lucky we were and how uncharacteristic that was for a bear as they usually just wander off into the woods when we see them. However, on our way home from Campbell River we saw another bear, acting the same way! We pulled over and he just sat in the ditch by our car watching us! We know it wasn’t the same bear as before because this poor critter had a cataract. Then we saw another bear a short distance down the road running. It was amazing and of course, no camera! I gave my email address to a couple other people who stopped and took pictures, so I’m hoping they will email. The elk we saw were on the side of the road too, real close. It’s like living in a zoo out here! J

Then on Monday evening I had to drive into Campbell River to pick up my son, Izaac. There was a plague of deer. Without exaggeration, the entire trip to Campbell River and back we must have seen around 30-50 deer. It was like a total infestation! In addition to the deer, I saw a bear and this time I had my camera. The pictures aren’t the greatest; in fact they’re downright horrible. I didn’t have anywhere to pull over to get real close because he was right on a corner. I got out of my car and walked towards him a bit...until he started jogging towards me so I quickly retreated to my car and tried to get some pictures while half hanging out my window. Izaac and I also saw an elk and for the grand finale we saw....A COUGAR! Just as we were making the turn-off to the second half of the Gold River highway, I was about to point to the cement barrier to show Izaac where somebody had graffitied “Forestry Ghost Towns à” (BC’s logging industry is really hurting at the moment) and found myself pointing directly at a cougar, he ran right in front of us and was illuminated by our headlights. After he crossed the road, he bounded off into the woods. It was so incredibly awesome to see!

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