Today was our last chance to find a spirit bear - several optional trips operated covering different ground - as some wanted to just see bears they went back to Mussel. As we have seen bears several times we opted for the 'White bear mission' as that was why we had come to Canada this time. Our trip went to Cahoona ( Kwoona) and walked along a river bank to a confluence of two rivers - we saw small and large prints and white hairs enroute so were very hopeful.
While waiting I watched loons and ravens on the river but no bears ..... so we decided to walk further up the bank to a fast flowing stretch and for the first time we saw salmon jumping up the rapids.
Still no bears even though we had seen more prints on our journey up.
In the early afternoon we were joined by four from another group who had drawn a blank in the morning. We still felt with the footprints and hairs we stood a good chance of spotting a spirit bear. We relocated to a different position slightly more in the forest and with more eyes we did spot a movement which turned out to be a young male grizzly who was actively fishing ( today's photo) and eating his catch. He was nervous and when he saw us he ran off. He proved grizzlies had swum over from the mainland and indeed he may have edged out the spirit and black bears.
As we left I spotted a half eaten fish on the path then we saw him again fishing just below us - he ran up the slope - so we progressed slowly allowing him to move where he wanted to even though he was probably grumpy with us disturbing his fishing!
We got back to the boat and rendezvoused with the boat that had brought the four additions to our team before all heading back to the lodge. (Tomorrows photo is their boat speeding in the misty moody weather back to the lodge.)
As we approached the lodge we watched snoozing & slow cruising humpbacks.
Our treat before dinner was an orca passing the lodge ( the other group had seen a whole pod on their return journey so this one didn't want us to feel left out!). After dinner we had a talk on the spirit bear research..... interestingly the researcher had never seen a spirit bear!!