BEAR WATCHING IN HYDER, AK: July 30

OK....here's "Mr. Frisky" cruising up and down Fish Creek looking for a tasty morsel of salmon. Only there are just a few because the "run" is late this year. He's huge!
Here he is crawling along the side of the creek. I was right above him on the boardwalk. Maybe 10 feet from him. It was exhilerating!

This should be later on down. We stopped in a Native village in Canada off of the Cassiar and took pictures of their totem poles. Chris counted the rings on the back of one of them and it was several hundred years old.
This is the sign that "Fat Albert" munched on.
These are the two sibling 3 yr. old cubs. You can see the one has cinamon tips on his coat. It's beautiful. They kind of chum around. At some point they will take off on their own.
This was one of the cubs looking for the other one. Isn't it a cool shot? They don't seem to have the nack of catching the salmon like the big one does...they look like they expect one to jump at them. I guess when the run begins....they just may!

At Fish Creek

We woke up to the pitter patter of liquid rain; taking down camp didn’t take long since we decided to go back to Hyder to see if the bears were getting any chum salmon for breakfast. When we got there the ranger asked whose fault it was that we weren’t there at 6 a.m. There had been 6 bears down at the creek and a big one giving a cuffing lesson to some cubs. Oh well, we stuck around to see what we could see and “Monica’s cubs” came back down to the creek, walking up and down, sticking together. They are 3 yr. old cubs. Mamma griz, Monica was down at the creek in the a.m. but she has kicked them out of the den already. After they left, Mr. Frisky came down. He was a huge griz with cinnamon splashes of color on his back. He was BIG! He seemed to know what he was doing. He trolled the creek, checking under the banks for where the fish hide, sat down in the middle and watched the water; them ambled over to the side and snagged himself some breakfast. He went up on the bank behind some bushes to eat the fish, but I heard him crunch it.
Upon leaving from the viewing area I spotted a sign that had been chewed on by “Fat Albert”…I love how they have named all of these bears. Loads of people were there this a.m. again.
Still raining, we headed back out for the Cassiar Hwy. and south. The sun popped through for a bit. Stopping at a Native Village, Kitseguekla, we took some pictures of their totem poles. Apparently these have nothing to do with religion, just their art and family stories.We drove to Smithers and are camped just east of town. Drove 240 miles today, but escaped from most of the rain….Yipee!

So, until we "connect" again.....