Canada signs...and birds

Every little town or village seems to heave these wonderful signs welcoming you.  Port Hardy is the northernmost town on Vancouver Island. 

Telegraph Cove, just down the road from Alder Bay.

Port McNeill was the closest town, and sported a grocery store and a drug store that we frequented for supplies (like my unscented sun screen that we had to search for...no scents allowed around the grizzlies).

The First Nations welcome sign at the ferry dock at Alert Bay.

Great Blue Heron

Believe it or not, a bald eagle.  They do not get the white head til they are between 4 and 5 years of age.  They go through a brown phase, and a mottled phase...and we got to see eagles in all three of these phases.

One of the majestic bald eagles that are residents of Alder Bay.

More Canada photos...

This is Derek, our guide on our Grizzly tour.  He was absolutely great!  He's a biologist who travels the globe studying bears...summers here on northern Vancouver Island with the grizzlies, then on to Churchill, Alaska to study polar bears, and then to Antarctica, also to study polar bears.  He was very personable, very likable, and very entertaining...and has a great love and respect for the bears that he studies.  Here, due to the low tide, Derek is pulling our boat further up the estuary, to get closer to the lone black male grizzly that is feeding on the sedge grass.

Seals sunning themselves on the rocks during out whale watching excursion.

More seals...the splashes are the ones who were a bit less tolerant of having us watching them.

OK, this is Glendale Cove, an uninhabited cove off of Knight Inlet.  This is the grizzly sanctuary.  In this picture, you are looking at the estuary, and to the left of the picture is where the river flows.  It is very low tide, and Derek actually had to get out and pull our flat-bottomed boat as we made our way closer to the tree line.  Amazingly, within an hour or so, this will all be underwater.  We saw 2 big lone male grizzlies by the tree line, but due to the low tide could only watch them through binoculars.  One was a big black male, the other a huge cinnamon-colored male.  They were gorgeous!  

Last picture was looking up the estuary...this one is looking from the estuary back toward Knight Inlet.  The flat land you can see is rapidly disappearing as the tide comes in.

Blackfish Sound.  Many of the humpbacks we saw on our whale-watching excursion were seen in Blackfish Sound.  The sound was host to fishing vessels, a couple of whale-watching boats, kayakers, and is the main shipping route for larger vessels, like the tug, making their way on the Inside Passageway.  It was a gorgeous area, sheltered a bit by large mountains, hosting numerous islands with picturesque channels.

A group of kayakers looking at some First Nation pictographs on the rocks.  I love how green the water looks!

Telegraph Cove is a beautiful little cove that hosts a marina, a restaurant, a small market, an information center, a whale museum, several guest cabins, and our Tide Rip Grizzly Tours.  

This is Alder Bay Resort, our campground.  This view is from our whale-watching sailboat, as Maureen and Dave were returning us to the dock after an absolutely spectacular day.  If you look just above the boats and below the first row of RVs, you can see Dad's red truck, and the dome of our tent.

The store and dock at Alder Bay.

Our campsite.  Dad BBQ'd daily...it was wonderful!

Dad, lounging at the camp site.

The view of Alder Bay from the ferry to Alert Bay.  In the trees surrounding Alder Bay, we were blessed with bald eagles, herons, ravens, crows, and seagulls.  It was a wonderful thing to be in camp and listen to the chatter of the bald eagles, and it was a treat to be able to look up anytime and find one, two, or more scanning their territory from their perches high up in the trees.

Our campsite view from the beach.  You can see the dome of the tent, and Dad's truck.  During high tide, the beach all but disappeared, and the water was just feet from the campsite.

Playing with my new camera...at the duck pond.

I'm not sure why, but I love this picture.  

The duck pond has tons of pigeons.  I love their colors, and sheen of their feathers.

Can we say "fat and content"?

I don't think I've ever seen a white pigeon before...

My thought at the moment..."If you poop, please don't let it hit the camera!"

In flight.

Canada goose

Awww, how sweet!

Canada geese

"Honk honk!!"

The good life...sunning yourself next to the one you love.  

Landing

"Hi there...Whatcha doin?"

Ducks

"I'm not coming any closer til I SEE the bread!"

Great Blue Heron

Ready to pounce...

Beautiful Blue Heron

A stunning white egret fishing at the duck pond.

Perfect reflection

Two amazing, regal birds.

God made northern Vancouver Island, and said "It is PERFECTION".

A Dall's Porpoise bow-running with a fishing vessel as we were headed up
to Knight Inlet to observe grizzlies in Glendale Cove.  We saw these playful critters several times when we were out in the sound, and man are they quick!  

Dad and I hiked to San Josef Bay, as we had been told the hike was absolutely stunning.  We hiked through the woods on a lovely trail, with sunlight peeking through the tree tops above us.  As we hiked, the trail would occasionally leave the forest and wander through some wetlands...quite marshy, with the tide about to come in.  We had NO clue that when we cleared the forest, we would be rewarded with this view of San Josef Bay!!  It was every bit as stunning as we had been told, and then some!  What you see when looking past the land is the Pacific Ocean, on the western side of the Island.  

Dad posing on one of the bridges on the trail to San Josef Bay.

Driving up to go hiking in Cape Scott Park, we spotted this little guy up a telephone pole.  As black bears are excellent climbers, we knew he would be able to get down just fine.  Below, and out of sight before I could focus my camera on her, was Mama Bear, bellowing at Junior to stop fooling around and come down this instant!

At Glendale Cove, we had the pleasure of observing grizzlies from quite a close distance.  This is Bella, with one of her C.O.Y.'s (cub-of-year).  Bella had triplets this year, and they were very happy searching the beach with Mama in search of food.  Since the salmon have not yet arrived, the bears turn over rocks looking for eels, and they eat sedge grass.

Two of Bella's cubs.  

When our boat tied up at the floating dock, Roll and Peanut were the first two bears there to greet us.  Roll is the Mama bear, and Peanut is her 2-yr-old male cub (the blonder of the two bears).  Peanut, even at age 2, is just about as big as Roll (who got her name due to the vigor with which she would roll rocks looking for food).

The view we had from our camp site was AMAZING!  Our site was a shrub's-width from the beach, which means we got to hear waves lapping up on the sand, got to watch the silhouettes of Great Blue herons fishing every night after the sun went down, and got to inhale the wonderful aroma of salt air.  It was by far the most perfect camp site I have ever had the honor of calling my temporary home.

If you turned your head a little to the right when looking at the sunset, this is the view you were awarded.  Across the strait is the village of Alert Bay, on Cormorant Island.  The sun was just starting to set, and the lights of the village were beginning to come on, one at a time.