Whoops, forgot to include the Kermode descriptor to the white black bear handle...but, I kinda avoided it 'cause I didn't want to start a 'spirit bear' vs. 'kermode' bear name debate...
As for craziest wildlife encounters, man oh man, where to start...would it be opening the front door living in Rupert and come face to face with a huge black bear in our garage? The town dump had recently closed and all the garbage bears scattered into town lookin' for food. Would it be going for a recon drive up William's Creek, coming around a bend in the road and ran into two Grizzlies doing it like they do on the discovery channel...and the dude wouldn't stop his business till he was finished..what are the odds????... Would it be commercial fishing off of Haida Gwaii and have a huge mofo of a Grey Whale snag into our gear, start pulling our troller over sideways untill the lines snapped 'BIIIIINNNNNGGGG', and see the poor guy surface with a bunch of flashers/hooks stuck on his back with the odd flapping salmon along for the ride...man I felt sick about that one....Would it be heliskiing up north of Stewart, landing on a 6000 foot elevation alpine ridge, like 2000 vert feet above treeline....skiing down off the landing to regroup. Spotted a porquipine carcass sitting half buried by the evening's snowfall atop the snow. Thought that was weird, then skied down the bowl...picked up by heli, flew back to same landing...spotted a wolverine just GIVIN'ER down and laterally across the bowl we skied, coming from the general direction of our heli landing... Got dropped off, skied back down to the regroup spot a bit down from the landing and, voila, mystery of the porquipine carcass solved. We were standing right on top of the little bastard's den on the previous regroup!!!! Peeking inside seeing partially consumed carcass, meat, bones, quills, blood....totally creepy. Or, would it be getting attacked by a Sand Lake piranha (I swear) after skiing in June, heading down to adjacent lake to dip the sore feet in the water while sitting on a little dock....then outta nowhere the fish started chomping on my toes, taking out good sized little chunks...it was some weird bullhead looking thing. I totally freaked out, got the fuck right outta there; most traumatic of all the wildlife encounters.
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