Posts tagged #blackbear

The Ultimate Roadtrip pt.4

IMG_8383-May 24, 2016.jpg

Clouds on the Horizon

DAY 4, 05/24/16: Liard Hotsprings to Saskatoon Island Provincial Park

The rain had once again caught up with us. It had rained a large part of the evening before, and this morning some light rain was mixed with the clouds that continued to hover over us. It had become pretty clear that we were moving in a direction towards more and more people. We had spent our first night in an empty campground in the Yukon Territory. Now, at Liard Hotsprings we were not so alone any longer. The roads here are wide, but there is a lack of traffic and as I mentioned earlier, summer is the season for roadwork.

Surrounded by Mountains

Since the campground was so crowded, we decided to drive for a bit until we had breakfast. We drove south on the Alcan. Passed mountain after mountain, but not really any other cars. There are so much wilderness here, and parks. National Parks and Provincial Parks. Everywhere you looked there were mountains partially covered in clouds. Deep forests and wilderness as far as the eye could see, and then this wide and empty road leading straight through it. If you have ever looked for serenity, this is it.

Muncho Lake Provincial Park

After about an hour we pulled into MacDonald campground right by Muncho Lake. We went to one of the short-term parking spots and and made some breakfast. As we were standing there the clouds parted a bit and we could see some small specks of blue sky behind a rainbow. We had yet another cup of coffee as we prepared for the long day ahead of us.

I rarely drive, but on a roadtrip like this there is no getting out of it. It is especially hard if you are seeing amazing views out the window. And there were plenty of times I instructed W to take some pictures. With mixed results. This also resulted in less photos of course. But the landscape still amazed us. The Rocky Mountains spread out into the west, but the coming hours we were going to move away from these mountains for a little bit. We would get plenty of views of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the days ahead. Just like in the US, the Canadian Rocky Mountains are spectacular..

The area south of the Northern Rocky Mountain Provincial Park has more wide open spaces and less mountains. We were still driving on wide roads though, and seeing the regular black bear crossing the road or by the side of the road from time to time.

Saskatoon Island Provincial Park

After 558 miles of driving we arrived at the smallest provincial park we could find, Saskatoon Island Provincial Park. The rain had stopped long time ago and we went for a walk to get some of the free firewood that most of these parks in Canada provide for free. It was late, we could hear other campers talking about the drive they had done so far. They had come from the south, driving north towards Alaska. They still had all of the wilderness and the Yukon ahead of them, and we, we had all of Banff and Jasper ahead of us. We sat by the fire a bit before we too finally went to bed.

Day 4 trip Details - Gas, Camping, and gas mileage:

  • Canada: Petro Canada Bluebell inn. Fort Nelson, BC, 200.7 miles from Liard Hotsprings. Gas mileage: 24.64 miles/gallon

  • Canada: Blueberry Esso. Mile 101 Alaska highway, Wonowon, BC, 184.1miles. Gas mileage: 26.58 miles/gallon

  • Total driving on day 4, about 384.8 + 173 miles from Wonowon gas station to Saskatoon Island Provincial Park (557.8).

  • The grand total of the whole trip: 1403.1 miles

  • Campground: Saskatoon Island Provincial Park, AB

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, The great wide open, The Ultimate Roadtrip and tagged Mountain Range Moving South Moving roadtrip Boreal Forest Camping car camping North Elsewhere Summer days Mountain Yukon Yukon Territory British Columbia 2019 Wonowon Adventure Summer Summer Adventures Canada Rocky Mountains Saskatoon Provincial Park Muncho Lake Black Bear Bear blackbear blackies.

Jinxing it?

Wednesday Thoughts

Bears

    As you probably have read earlier I am obsessed with bear and moose safety. With all the wild animals that walk around the watershed I've taken many classes on bear safety and how to act in order to prevent a bear encounter. A few weeks ago there were two bear attacks on two separate days at two different locations in Alaska, both with a deadly outcome. Both including a black bear. It made me think about the fact that I have no clue what to do if worse comes to worse and you are attacked (read the bear is actually eating on you and it is a predatory bear). We do have the bear spray, but if for some reason I would not be able to deploy the bear spray and the bear actually got to me? Or you ran in to one of those predatory bears that is in it for a meal, what do you do? I know they say fight for your life, but how can you fight for your life if you have nothing to fight with but your bare hands, arms and legs? I have heard other stories about people being attacked in their tent, well I know this is extremely rare, but I started storing a knife in the tent for a while, and then I forgot about it. A knife that would allow you to cut the tent open if you needed to. I used to wear a knife in the field to, but then I forgot about that too, it was usually in my backpack if I did bring it. 

Fieldwork

    W has been in the field too, countless times, many times alone. I think W has seen a bear from afar in the past while doing fieldwork, and I saw the back of a black bear once running away from me when I was on the ATV in the field once. Another time something was luring behind a tree as a friend and I came walking quietly after a long day in the field, we spooked it, it was huffing behind a large tree before it took a large leap to the side and ran up the hill. Still no clue if this was a bear or a moose. Lesson learned, be loud, and then be even louder. It's easy to forget about this after a long day working hard in the field, or when you are working with your head down in the stream it's easy to not make enough noise, plus you will most likely draw a curious bears attention to you, because many of them are just curious. With W's field season coming up and what had happened in Alaska I wanted him to buy a knife, a knife to have as a last resort, if for some reason there was no other way but to fight for your life. We talked about bear safety too, repeating what we already knew, again. I know W thought I was being ridiculous, but with what had just happened I felt first off very saddened for the two peoples families, but also very scared and wanted to be sure there was a way to fight for your life. I've had people laugh and make fun of me for my intense worry about bears in the field in the past too, but at least I want to be up to date with the bear safety for my own safety.

Jinxing it?

    W bought a knife, a large hunting knife, I mean not too large, but enough to be able to potentially make an impact. At least something to have in the tent if you would need to get out fast, or to have on your belt in the field. After a few hours of the first day in the field for W he texted me and said he had to pull his bear spray. Which is insane because that has never happened before, he has never had an encounter like that before. This time he wasn't even alone. But the bear was a curious black bear, those are the worst. A young curious black bear who would not move away even though they made sound and made themselves larger. Eventually he moved away enough for them to feel safe and retract too. Did I jinx his field season? A couple of days later they were going to cross a stream to another field site and W decided that they should walk downstream a bit, and then try to cross. Well luckily they did because they manage to spot two grizzlies across the stream about 50m away from them, something they would have popped up right in front of had they crossed earlier. Yeah I really jinxed it didn't I?

Last time I camped in Yellowstone National Park

    Fingers crossed that those were the only bears for this field season, as I am sitting on a plane on Friday to Jackson WY to spend 10 days in the field in Yellowstone, and some of those camping!

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Nature, Yellowstone and tagged Alaska Bears Bear safety Bear spray Grizzly tracks signs CPCRW Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone 2017 Adventure Adventuring Summer Adventures 2 Fieldwork blackbear.