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Kitty Coleman Woodland Gardens, Courtenay, BC 18 - 20 May 2013
Canada Day Market. Campbell River, 01 July 2013
Summer Market, Qualicum Beach BC
04, 11, 18, 25 July, 01 August 2013
Courtenay Market Day, Courtenay, BC 20 July 2013
Comox Nautical Days, Comox, BC 03 - 05 August 2013
Nanaimo Professional Craft Fair, Nanaimo, BC 01 - 03 Nov 2013
Dickens Christmas Craft Faire, Courtenay, BC 08 - 10 Nov 2013
Kris Kringle Craft fair (www.kriskringle.ca) Parksville, BC 14 - 17 Nov 2013
Comox Mall, Comox, BC 04 - 24 Dec 2013More to follow soon...
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Ben Davies Financial Planning, Beaufort Ave, Comox BC - Various Images in an Ongoing Display
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Tag Archives: Spirit Bear
Fishing Spirit
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Here is a shot from last fall on the BC coast – a spirit bear (Ursus Americanus kermodai) hot on the tail of a pink salmon. A large splash of water spray can be seen to the left of the image from the tail of the salmon as it makes it’s way up river and this has caught the attention of the spirit bear. He was successful and left the river with a large pink salmon for his efforts. More spirit bears can be seen in the spirit bear gallery.
Scrumping Kermode
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Here is a shot taken along the BC coast in the Great Bear Rainforest a couple of years back. It shows a spirit bear early one morning enjoying himself searching for crab apples amongst the wild crab apple trees that surround one of the many coves in the area. Note how his front left paw holds the branch down whilst he checks it over. We had been out watching this bear since first light and were fortunate to see him not only looking for late fall apples but also saw him catch a number of chum salmon to supplement his breakfast.
Smiling Spirit
Here is a shot from along the BC coast that was taken back in the early fall. It shows a spirit bear that almost appears to be smiling as he looks down in the river in the hope of spying a salmon hiding or trapped beneath the logs. Bears will often check along the side of the rivers like this in search of spawned out salmon caught up amongst the roots and branches of trees and bushes or for live salmon taking a quick breather in the shadows before continuing their journey up river to spawn. This guy, having no luck in this spot, quickly disappeared back in to the bush and didn’t re-emerge until some time later in the day, when he had better luck with a large male pink salmon.
Watching for Salmon
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Here is a spirit bear shot taken last month in the Great Bear Rainforest. With the dry summer, the passage of salmon along the rivers was slow in many places and the river that is home to this bear was no exception. He was the only kermode bear spotted this year up to that time, on that river, when normally two or three have been seen by mid-September. He is a bear that is familiar to me though, I first got to photograph him back in 2009 and as always it is great to see he is still around and to get to photograph him again. More shots of this guy both from 2009 & 2012 can be seen here in the spirit bears gallery.
And The Winner Is…
Over the summer we ran a free to enter prize draw in which visitors to the site were asked to vote for their favourite image on the site, (not including the image on the ‘About‘ page!). All voters were entered into the draw to win a free, limited edition, signed 8 x 10 print of the winning image.
The overall favourite image as voted for by visitors to the website was the print ‘Black & White’. Taken in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest on the BC coast, this image portrays black and white spirit bears fishing for salmon and was also featured as the cover for the book Encounters! The Wonders of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.
The prize draw winner, as drawn by Ben Davies, of Ben Davies Financial Planning in Comox, was Barbara Fulton from Vancouver. Barbara will receive one of the only 25 remaining available, signed limited edition prints of Black & White.
Congratulations to Barbara and watch out for future events here on stevewphotography.ca.
Spirit Bear on the Prowl
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This bear was on the prowl stalking salmon in the river and he is one of several spirit or Kermode (ker-mo-dee) bears that I have been fortunate to see and photograph here on the BC coast. When I chat with people at shows and events I attend, I’m surprised how many people from here in BC have never even heard of the spirit bear, know where it resides or how very few there are left in the wild, just 200 to 400, that’s all! More can be seen here in the spirit bear gallery.
Hungry Spirit
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This ‘action’ shot of a spirit bear or Kermode bear getting tucked in to a pink salmon was photographed here on the BC coast a short while back. Quite often these bears will just come down to the river, grab a salmon and head back in to the bush to eat it, which is what this guy did on a number of occasions throughout the day, but after a while he started to just stay down by the river to eat his catch. More spirit bears can be seen in the spirit bear gallery and you can learn more about spirit bears in the article I wrote for ‘In Focus’ magazine. (click here – capturing the spirit).
Spirit Bear
I got this picture of a spirit bear mom and her yearling black cub in the fall last year in the Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s northern coast. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that some people claimed this spirit bear wasn’t ‘white’ enough and asked to be taken to find other less dark bears! More spirit bears can be seen here in the Spirit Bear Gallery.
Cinnamon Bear
Not all North American black bears are black! As well as the white black bears – the kermode or spirit bear, the BC coast is also home to another non-black black bear, the cinnamon bear. I had heard of these bears, but, despite several attempts to see one, had never been fortunate enough to actually see a live one. That all changed late last spring when I came across this guy along the BC coast. These bears, Ursus americanus cinnamomum, can have a variety of several shades of brown or reddish brown coat, but apart from their coat, like spirit bears, they have similar characteristics to other black bears. If you were to travel a little further north into the Yukon or Alaska you may also be lucky to find a ‘blue’ black bear or glacier bear. Should you want to learn more, the 2002 book ‘The Blue Bear’ by Lynn Schooler is a good place to start.
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Also tagged BC Coast, Bear, black bear, Blue Bear, Cinnamon Bear, Kermode
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Spirit Bear Looks Back
This is a spirit or kermode bear that I got to photograph a little while back in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. You can see more spirt bears in the spirit bear gallery. These very special bears are actually black bears born white. They are not albino, they do not have pink eyes and often retain their black noses too and are born out of a recessive gene that must be present in both parents, it is not unusual to see a white mom with black cubs or a black mom with white cubs. This bear had been chasing salmon on a river when he heard a movement behind him, which turned out to be another spirit bear. It is estimated that between 2 – 400 of these bears remain in the wild on the BC coast. This was the guy selected by Canadian Geographic, as mentioned in my 2011 Newsletter if you haven’t already seen it.
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