The 12 best bear photos I’ve ever taken
I love bears. Especially grizzly bears – I feel that Grizzly Bear is my spirit animal. A news report saying that 2 black bears have already been spotted near Haines Junction prompted me to pull up my wildlife photos file last night. I thought that I might be able to pick out my favourite dozen out of the 1,994 photos. Nope! I did pick out my favourite dozen bear photos, though, and have posted them below. The photos are posted in chronological order.
July 15, 2006: Top of the World Highway, Yukon. I was driving a tour bus, and stayed with the bear for almost 10 minutes. This photo was shot just after a motorhome and a truck camper had gone by at high speed – those are the sort of people who will get home and complain that they spent a month in Alaska and saw no wildlife at all.
July 19, 2006: Denali National Park, Alaska. The first 3 photos in this gallery were shot on a single tour, when I was travelling with a group from New Zealand. This female was seen near Stony Hill, while heading back to the lodge on a bus tour into the park.
July 19, 2006: Denali National Park, Alaska. The sow in this photo is the same one seen in the image above.
July 15, 2008: Denali National Park, Alaska. Two years later, another grizzly near Stony Hill. This one dug into the cold earth to have a nap on a hot day.
May 24, 2009: Stewart-Cassiar Highway, BC. This was one of many bears we saw during this 2-day drive up the Stewart-Cassiar. Our count of “big game” for the afternoon that this photo was shot was 14 black bears, 4 moose and 3 caribou. It’s the bit of vegetation in front that put this on my “favourite” list. This trip was one of my best ever for wildlife sightings – there are many photos on my 4-page photojournal from it.
June 17, 2011: along Tutshi Lake on the South Klondike Highway, BC. This is my cutest black bear – doesn’t he look snuggly? 🙂 This is a brown-phase black bear.
May 4, 2012: Chilkoot River, Haines, Alaska. This and a few dozen other photos of bears in this area were shot during a 4-day tour of what is marketed as the “Golden Circle Route”, from Whitehorse to Skagway, Haines, Haines Junction and back.
May 19, 2012: north of Log Cabin on the South Klondike Highway, BC. This very active bear seemed to have spring fever, and we spent a while with him on the way home from a ride on the WP&YR railway on the Victoria Day long weekend.
June 12, 2012: south of Carcross on the South Klondike Highway, BC. Wikipedia says that “The cinnamon bear (Ursus americanus cinnamomum) is both a color phase and subspecies of the American black bear…” This was shot on the way home from a 2-week trip with friends, that had begun with 4 days in Vancouver and then an Alaska cruise. After 2 weeks of getting skunked for good bear sightings, Mother Nature sent one final gift for Cathy and I, but our friends never did see any bears (but had awesome moose sightings).
June 15, 2015: near Km 1603, Alaska Highway, Yukon. Most of my photos of this bear are of him eating soapberries.
June 1, 2016: Bow Lake, Icefields Parkway, Alberta. The next 2 photos were taken during the best experience Cathy or I have ever had with a grizzly – this bear stayed around our motorhome out in the wilderness for over 12 hours, and we finally had to leave so the dogs could go out for a pee! There’s an entire page of photos from this experience here.
June 1, 2016: Bow Lake, Icefields Parkway, Alberta. Even Molly got an awesome grizzly experience!
Now I need to keep going through the wildlife file and see what other photos might be worth putting in another “best” gallery 🙂
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