Later in the morning we rode up on the Lake Louise Gondola - well to be more accurate on an open seated ski lift - it was a choice of a gondola or open seats. It was such a lovely day we chose to be in the fresh air - but perhaps a bit scarier than the gondola car. Feet dangling about 50ft off the ground. It's supposed to be the best place to see grizzly bears in the area, and safely. Arrived at the top without any sightings.
Visited the viewing platform for yet more photo ops. Lake Louise in the distance over Eric's shoulder...
Visit to the Interpretation Centre and chatting with Park staff we found out that there was going to be a guided naturalist walk in about 20 min, which we decided to join. Only problem was it needed at least 4 people as by law you have to be in groups of at least 4 if hiking around the area when grizzlies have been spotted. There was one death of a hunter and one close shave in the area in the last two weeks. The guided walk was focussing on Bear Awareness, which seemed appropriate. The centre, viewpoint and cafe were completely surrounded by an 8ft electric fence. Five minutes before and still only us and the naturalist, but wait...what's this...a couple from the Czech Republic sign up, so away to go.
Whilst waiting for the walk to start we had a good view of a Swainson's Hawk.
These are the last birds to migrate from the area, and the first to return.
Our guide was called Ben, and he was from Brisbane! So not a local. We entered a wildlife area through a gate in the electric fence, being very careful only to touch the blue insulating bar. Down a steep hill (not looking forward to coming back up) Ben stops regularly to talk about being aware of signs of wildlife, specifically bears. We were told how to be safe in bear country and what to do if you encounter a bear. If you want know too, have a look at this link (rather scary)
http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/mtn/ours-bears/securite-safety/ours-humains-bears-people.aspx
Ben is very reassuring, giving information in the form of a quiz and is quite whimsical. We are shown the sorts of things that bears eat, mostly (85% vegetation), carrion, and anything they can steal off animals lower in the food chain - in the case of a grizzly this is everything including cougar, black or brown bears etc. They will occasionally hunt for themselves, but are basically lazy.
They need to consume 40,000 calories a day to survive - that's a lot of berries.
We were also shown piles of bear poo, in different stages of decay! The volume if berries they eat turns the poo purple.
Next, past a bear den that was used last winter. It's surprising just how small the entrance hole is, but they only use it once to go in and once to come out, so as long as they can squeeze through they are happy.
Along with the awareness message the form is to make sure you don't surprise the bears by making plenty of noise as you proceed and it's advised to shout "YO BEAR" regularly especially approaching blind corners, or in the case of grizzlies, open areas with lots of berry bushes in. This way you should avoid a bear encounter - the best scenario. Bear spray is also useful just in case the bear does come too close, especially if it's one of the rare occasions when it might be stalking you! Ben also told us about the 'defensive position' - play dead - lie down flat on your stomach, legs slightly spread, hands over the back of your neck and if the bear rolls you over just keep rolling. In the close encounter described a lady out jogging with earphones in surprised a bear and did just this - the bear apparently came up to her, licked her face and then carried on its way. I think I'd probably have passed out by that stage!
It's been a bad year this year in Banff National Park and the bears are apparently quite skinny. Ben told us that the bears in this area generally don't do as well as in other areas of Canada anyway as the habitat is so inhospitable, lots so steep sided mountain and not much valley bottom that they also have to share with us humans.
Our education continued later on the evening with a talk by a local naturalist on the high tech gadgets being deployed in monitoring the well-being of the grizzly bear population in Banff National Park This includes satellite tracked GPS collars, motion sensing cameras and DNA analysis of hair samples gleaned from bear communication trees. They are using Geographical Information Sensing (GIS) to put together all the layers of information and data including satellite imaging of habitat quality (otherwise known as remote sensing by Natural Resources Wales). He also talked about the success of underpasses and overpasses for avoiding wildlife collisions on the highways - they work! We passed under one of their overpasses on the way to the Spiral Tunnels earlier in the afternoon.
Do you think the Welsh Government would pay for some of these over the M4?
The spiral tunnels are an engineering feat of tunnels looping around which if you get there at the right time you can see the front of the train emerge from one as the rear of the same train is going in to another. We saw the train but the photo can't capture the whole scene.
You may just be able to see the train.