-10.6˚C, cold with wind chill.
“If you go out to the dump today
You’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go out to the dump today
It’s not only swarming with flies.
For every grizzly that lives around here
Will gather there and cause lots of fear,
Yesterday was the day we saw grizzlies having a picnic.”
So, Graham and I will never go to Deanna and Dave’s without a camera again. Last time it was a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Tsiigehtchic, this time…grizzly bears! BUT, the good news is that on the way to where we saw the bears we stopped at our place to get our camera, thus we have photos.
They had us over for a barbeque on their deck. Should have been wearing sunscreen, the sun was so hot out there. I worked this morning so didn’t want to stay too late. Graham, Deanna and Dave all work at the pool, so their days off are Monday’s and Tuesdays. Mine are Saturday, Sunday. Point being, I always end up staying up too late when I work the next morning.
Around nine they drove us home, but mentioned a sheltered spot at the dump where people leave things that can be taken by anyone (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure type place). The dump is where you hear that bears hang out, so I grabbed our camera just in case. They laughed at that point; who’s laughin’ now..
We see someone we know at the ‘golf course’ on the way, so pull over to take a few shots on the ‘green’. They’re working on planting grass, but people are already golfing there.
To the dump we go. Not much to be found for treasure, so we walk toward the dump part just to stay in the sun a bit longer.
“There’s one!” a fair maiden says in a lovely voice. (It was me.) Oh yes, there he was. A great big grizz-a-ly bear. Naturally, my first reaction was to run…closer…but, Deanna and Graham growled at me (like bears). So, I walked closer instead. They’ve got all that dump food, they don’t want fresh meaty humans.
We were so happy that we had the camera. With the long lens, we certainly got closer with that than we could physically. Darn it. We did end up going closer than some of us (not me) would have liked, but he went back over the hill so we had to see if he was coming back.
This was so amazing to see this animal with nothing between us but space…not much of that either.
There are also rumours of a polar bear near town, but that’s still just a rumour, so who knows. I’ll go confirm that shortly. Just kidding, sort of.
The black birds in the photos are ravens, which are huge.
The Grizzly Tamers,
Jen
Grizzly bear at Inuvik dump.
That is freaky awesome, Jen! Did you get to hear any roaring?
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