Charles Russell - Spirit bear: encounters with the white bear of the western rainforest

Copyright 1994, 2017 Charles Russell

Foreword 1994, 2017 Andy Russell

First published in 1994 by Key Porter Books

This edition published in Canada in 2017 and the USA in 2017 by House of Anansi Press Inc.

www.houseofanansi.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All photographs are by the author except where otherwise noted.
Photograph of the Great Bear Rainforest on pages 45: Jack Borno / Wikimedia Commons

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Russell, Charles, 1941, author, photographer

Spirit bear : encounters with the white bear of the western rainforest / text and photographs by Charles Russell ; foreword by Andy Russell.

Includes index.
A reissue of Spirit Bear, a classic work of Canadian nature and wildlife; includes an updated design and a new afterword by the author.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4870-0209-1 (paperback).ISBN 978-1-4870-0210-7 (epub).ISBN 978-1-4870-0211-4 (mobi)

1. Black bear--British Columbia--Princess Royal Island. 2. Black
bear--British Columbia--Princess Royal Island--Pictorial works. 3. Kermode
bear--British Columbia--Princess Royal Island. 4. Kermode bear--British
Columbia--Princess Royal Island--Pictorial works. I. Title.

QL737.C27R88 2017 599.785097111 C2016-906012-8

C2016-907025-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958339

Book design: Alysia Shewchuk

Front cover image: Don Paulson / Danita Delimont / Offset.com

Back cover image: Maureen Enns

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund .

For Anthony, the only child I ever had.

In the Early Years chapter, I write about Anthony saving my life when he was only eleven years old. Anthony died July 4, 2012, at age thirty-nine, and I stood by helplessly, not able to do a thing to keep his life going. He was a remarkable individual, a model to his family and to so many others as well.

Contents

Foreword

Charlie Russell, my second son, has been destined to be associated with bears from the time he was born. When he was about a month old, his mother left him sleeping in his carriage on the verandah of our cabin one fine morning. While she was inside, a black bear came out of the trees close to the house and went up on the porch. It didnt disturb Charlie but retreated back into the bush, leaving some dirty tracks on the step.

Charlie, with his sister and three brothers, grew up in bear country. The only advice we gave them was never run from a bear, and it was good advice, because they experienced many close encounters with both black and grizzly bears in their growing years.

In 1961, Charlie and his brother Dick joined me to begin a three-year film study of grizzly bears in the best grizzly country we could find in Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Alaska. There are those that think that true exploration in North America is a thing of the past. Not so, for there is a whole world of exploration waiting in the realm of nature which has never been fully investigated. At that time, we all shared the fascinating experience of exploring the life of a much-misunderstood animal and the wild country in which it lived. Charlie, always daring and adventurous, enjoyed himself immensely and helped obtain footage that would eventually become the first film to demonstrate that man and the grizzly could live together. For the last two years of that effort, we not only obtained some outstanding 16mm colour film recording the big bears at close range, but we also did so completely unarmed except for our cameras.

I recall Charlie celebrating his twenty-first birthday by taking a hike alone up into the mountains. Dick and I were watching him through our binoculars about 2 km away as he walked up the incline of a hogback ridge. Suddenly a grizzly showed up below him and began climbing toward him. Charlie stopped and photographed the bear as it approached. Then the grizzly stopped and obviously the two of them were sizing each other up. After a moment, Charlie moved on along the crest of the ridge with the bear traveling at a walk a bit below and to one side until the contour of the country hid them both. Needless to say, Dick and I were left wondering what eventually happened, until along about sunset, we saw Charlie coming across the flat to camp. He was ecstatic as he told us about his day of adventure and, what was even better, his film record of it.

When Charlie undertook to help film and photograph the little-known Kermode bear on Princess Royal Island, he brought to his work years of experience. His extensive knowledge of bear country and bears enabled him to develop a personal connection with one of the bears on the island a connection that, to my knowledge, no other person has ever accomplished. The result of his work with the Spirit Bear is this beautiful book.

Andy Russell

The Hawks Nest

Alberta, 1994

Early Years

I was born and raised on a beautiful ranch in the southwest corner of Alberta, Canada. It was markedly wild country when I was a child, and some of that wildness remains today. The ranch lies along the northeast boundary of what is now Waterton Lakes National Park. Its good cattle range but even better bear habitat. Although there are meadows, the land is peppered with dense willow, muskeg, and wind-gnarled aspen.

My maternal grandfather, Bert Riggall, arrived in Calgary fresh from England in 1904. The son of mayor of Grimsby, a town on the east coast of England, he had graduated from Woodhouse Grove boarding school in Yorkshire when the urge to travel around the world came upon him. Needing money by the time he arrived in Calgary, he found a job with the original land survey crew working in the southwest corner of the province. This area so appealed to him that he decided to take up a homestead and settle there with his new bride Dora, an Irish woman who had cooked for the survey crew.

Bert Riggalls choice of homestead had more to do with his interest in its wildlife than his desire to become a farmer. Many of the early homesteaders in this rugged area were hard put to make a living solely off the land. The high elevation, severe weather, and short frost-free growing period pretty well limited the crop options to hay and oats. Bert and Dora decided to make the most of the dramatic and wild land in which they lived. Beginning in 1910, they developed a guiding business for well-to-do clients from the eastern United States. In the early years, guiding hunters through the mountains on horseback was the backbone of the business, but my grandfather had other talents which soon surfaced. Within a few years, he was widely sought out for his skills as a botanist, naturalist, and photographer. His concerns about conservation soon led to his involvement in the expansion of Waterton Park in 1914, even though the new boundaries encompassed what had been his hunting territory. Grandfathers interest in natural history and conservation, long before they became fashionable, served as an inspiration to succeeding generations of his family.