Bear Creek, Vancouver Island, Hike 3, Hot, 28

So, Where's Dem Bears?


We moved from the interior of the Island down to the east coast to camp and hike for a couple more days. A friend of Annemarie's, Michelle, kindly offered to talk us for a couple of walks to see a little of her area and we gladly accepted. Michelle was accompanied by her 1 year old Border Collie, Charlie, a lovely dog who was quite difficult to ignore!
The first walk was down to the mouth of Oyster River where I had completed some hydrology work to assist with Salmon enhancement studies in the early 1980's. Its a nice tidal estuary...for a dog to enjoy!
There was an odd sighting on the River, but that was about it.
We eventually headed northward along the coast line. It was pleasant, but fairly unremarkable, except for the smoke which robbed us of views of the stunning Coastal Mountain range. Such is life.

Then we moved more inland to walk along Bear Creek, another part of the Salmon Enhancement study where considerable time and effort has been expended to improve the salmon runs. It was a good walk and while we saw no bears, there was definitely bear signs as the sign posts confirmed! So yes Neil, there are bears in this area, I've encountered them here before.

The tributaries have been 'managed' to encourage spawning activity and they have done an excellent job.



There are also quiet areas where the fry are protected from the local wildlife for the first year before they are released into the main stream to head into the open ocean.

We found a pub for a nice lunch and after saying farewell to Michelle and Charlie we headed back to camp and watched the ebb and flow of the smoke and enjoyed the sunset.





Once home the smoke became more intense and settled in for over 10 days, but happily last night we had the first short rain in 2 months and the accompanying wind shift has sent the smoke back again into the eastern interior. A very pleasant change!!