September 17th, 2018
This morning we headed to the bridge and stayed there until about 1:00pm … no signs of bears. In the morning, I was curious about the section down the river so I walked along the river bank to the open area and again no bears, but lots of signs that bears were in the area. I have to say it was quite a beautiful view from this spot though.
We drove a short distance onto a side road where we heard someone had dumped some salmon. We got to the area and could truly smell them. A young lady who was part of the construction crew working on the bridge came down to greet us. She asked where we were from and then she informed us she was from New Zealand. I asked her if she had visited the Petroglyphs and she indicated she had. I asked her if she knew about the link between the Petroglyphs and New Zealand … she asked how I knew that. I informed her that we met a gentleman who has been studying them for over 35 years. She said, “Bryan” and that he was the one that is responsible for her visiting Bella Coola, getting her a job where he is the construction owner and she has been coming to Bella Coola since she was a little girl visiting Bryan and family. We asked her to say hello to him for us as we were not allowed up to the construction site.
We left the bridge and made our way to Bella Coola to get some gas. We decided to go a little further to see if the tide was out. The tide was on its way out and the water was very calm which made for some great photo’s.
I stopped in to talk to the Harbour Master to find out how to get to MacKenzie’s Rock. He indicated that it was over 20 miles away and to do a boat tour would be around $800.00 for a day per person! Not within my budget. LOL He mentioned that he believes it was carved by someone else later on and not by MacKenzie. He also mentioned that most tour operators were done for the season. That finalizes that plan. Ha Ha Ha
Where the bay was so calm, got some interesting pics of an abandoned dock.
We went back to the bridge to find out that we again missed the sow and cub that came out just after we left! Today was not our day for seeing bears and that is how it goes. There were two ladies that we saw a few times and they have only seen one bear in 3 days, it is all in the timing.
The time here was never a waste as there was so much other wildlife that we witnessed. From eagles ...
a heron ...
... to a mink (or weasel) which was so quick it was hard to get a photo ...
... and not to mention but the amount of fish in the water.
The funny thing is that while a group of people that we met at the bridge (who live in the area) told us that we just missed the bear earlier, a guy drove up and told us that he just saw a bear cross the road about a kilometre from us. The lighting was getting to the point where it would be difficult to get any great shots, so we headed back to the campsite.
After cooking supper and then sitting by the campfire chatting, we heard a couple grumbling sounds. We got up off our chairs and walked to the other side of our tents that were next to the river and looked a little ways up to see FOUR GRIZZLIES walking around by the river. It turns out that we didn’t have to wait by the bridge, they came to us. LOL
It was too dark to take any photos, but it was fun to watch them. They were working their way up the bank towards us, only on the opposite side, and then they headed into the woods. Once in the woods, a bear or two must have been in an argument as they certainly roared. What a chilling sound to hear at dusk … COOL!
Every time through the night when you heard something, you would think, “What was that?!” HaHaHa