How To Safely See A Bear From Vancouver
Disclaimer: No bear sightings are guaranteed from reading this blog, and I am not advocating getting close to bears. This is fully a blog on my experience with bear viewing in North America, and when the odds are higher that you’ll get to see a bear.
I am obsessed with bears. I love wildlife and seeing a bear in the wild, for a British gal brought up in a country with absolutely no wildlife that can kill you, is so so exciting. I wrote this blog because I’m always surprised how many of my friends would like to see a bear but never have. So this blog is for the people like me, the people who just really want to just see a bear.
Safety First
Never approach a bear. Obviously. My rule for how I want to see a bear (or a moose, or a wolf, or a bison….) is ‘From Afar, Or From My Car’. Please don’t be a dumbass after reading this blog and go running about approaching bears. I don’t want to be responsible for any bear maulings.
If you’re hiking in bear country (near Vancouver this is pretty much every mountain) BRING BEAR SPRAY (this is the bear necessity you’ve heard so much about)! Oh, and then LEARN HOW TO USE THE BEAR SPRAY. There’s a tonne of videos on YouTube for this, do not sleep on this step. Finally, MAKE SURE YOU CAN REACH THE BEAR SPRAY. If you’re in a situation where you need bear spray it will be a wild-west quick draw situation, so don’t bury it in your backpack. I get my bear spray from Mountain Equipment Co-op or Canadian Tire, and for my overnight pack I have a bear spray holster that is also from Canadian Tire.
Be bear aware. This is as simple as keeping your eyes and ears open (no headphones) on a trail and look for signs of bear activity (scat, prints, claw marks are the main ones).
A quick word about bear bells: Yes. Okay they make sound, but it doesn’t carry very far. Maybe 6ft, so it’s very common for a bear to see or smell you before they hear your bear bell. No, a bear bell doesn’t ‘attract bears’ (or cougars). It alerts them of your presence, and if a bear (or cougar) happens to be a curious one, it might try to get closer. If a bear is habituated to humans, hearing a bell that it associates with humans is likely not to have a deterring effect. Intermittently yelling ‘Hey Bear’ will do more than bells in alerting bears of your presence. To avoid having a bear encounter on a trail, hike in groups and make continuous noise.
If you see a bear stay calm and do not run. I was going to go into the specifics of what to do in the event of a bear encounter, but it took up so much space, so instead I will give you links from WildSafe BC for an encounter with a Black bear or a Grizzly bear.
Factors to Consider
Season
Bear season is from around March/ April to October/ November depending on food availability in their area. The earliest I’ve seen a bear in North Vancouver is April 4th, I’ll include the photo from that encounter below. From August up until the time they hibernate bears are food crazed as they need to get all chunky with food preserves for the winter (for fat bear content Google Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week, you can thank me later). Just so I make sure to impart some actual real knowledge in this blog… the technical term for this feeding stage is hyperphagia.
This is a time bears will be out and about but are likely to get aggressive if disturbed from their snacking (same).
On the subject of season… when the salmon run, the bears, (I don’t know, what rhymes here?), have fun? When the salmon run the bears have fun. So for the complete novice, let’s have a quick lesson on salmon! Not only do they taste delicious grilled, candied, or smoked on a bagel with a schmear of cream cheese but they are also a super cool fish. Salmon return to their river of birth to spawn (lay thousands of eggs). Once they get there they spawn and die (or they die on the way). Either way, the rivers team with salmon and the bears hear their siren call. Mountain bears feed primarily on berries, but coastal bears and bears along these rivers also feed on these salmon. There’s a number of resources listing places you can view the salmon run, and a few of these places are very likely to have bears frequenting them too.
Weather
You may have noticed bears are covered in fur, this means they get hot. So on sweltering hot summer days, your odds of catching a glimpse of these furry bulldozers is much slimmer!
Time of Day
Bears are by no means nocturnal, but largely because of the last point, weather, in the summer bears are more likely to be out and about and visible in the evenings when the weather is milder. 5pm to dark is peak bear viewing time in my experience with Black bears.
Ask The Locals
Wherever I go I ask the locals where they often see wildlife I’m keen on spotting. Often the answer is not somewhere you’d ever look. I once got ‘the field behind the airport’ as the answer. Sadly that field was accessible on foot only, and I was not looking to put myself in a situation where I was wandering around a bear-infested field (circling back to my ‘From Afar or From My Car’ mantra).
Patience
The sad reality of it is you are probably not going to see a bear as soon as you arrive to a spot. I like to pack snacks and a warm drink in my flask and be ready to hunker down somewhere for a little while. There’s usually plenty of other things to observe while you wait for a bear.
Locations
There is no one place that can guarantee you a bear sighting (I know, boo, you thought this was the blog that would finally tell you). Actually, Grouse Mountain will absolutely guarantee you a bear sighting as their rescued grizzlies, Grinder and Coola are out and about in their enclosure all summer and into the fall until they hibernate.
Anyway, there are a few places you can go in Vancouver, and beyond that will raise the odds (and will give you a great experience bears or no bears.)
Cypress Mountain
A local classic. In the summer, all it should take is a trip or two to the Cypress Ski Hill parking lot and scanning the ski hills to spot a black bear grazing and wandering about. If you’re willing to stick around, this is also where you can start hikes that head into Cypress Provincial Park. The infamous St Mark’s Summit hike leaves begins here and so can the (one-way) Howe Sound Crest Trail.
Whistler
Basically the bear capital of the lower mainland. I have only been to Whistler once in the summer and not seen a bear. This is the closest I can guarantee you to seeing a bear.
Follow my instructions and you’re PROBABLY going to see one of our fluffy friends. Visit Whistler in summer. August is probably best (to coincide with wildflower season for us humans and hyperphagia for the bears). Pay the exorbitant price to ride the gondola to the top of Whistler Mountain. I can’t even pretend the cost is not ridiculous ($75 at time of writing) but think of it as a wildlife viewing investment. Enjoy your time at the top, eat some food, do a hike. Now, the key here is to time one of your gondola trips so it’s early evening time. I went down at 6pm and got to see 2 bears right below me.
If this fails, driving up Callaghan Road to the Whistler Olympic Park area as this has also been a rich area for bear viewing in my experience. Keep your eyes on the steep bank for bears grazing. Alternatively, pay one of the nice bear tour companies in Whistler to take you on one of their excursions. These guides even know some of the locations of day-beds where the bears like to sun themselves and rest after a big meal!
Vancouver Island
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put into words how special Vancouver Island is. Only if you’ve visited can you have a grasp on the magic this place has. Personally, a lot of this magic lies in the abundance of wildlife. Deer are everywhere, the odds of seeing whales are up tenfold (well, duh, if you’re surrounded by water that makes sense), and of course bears are commonly spotted.
I’ve seen bears at a few spots on the Island, they’re often spotted around Sooke, around the West Coast Trail region of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and up North in the Island around Port Hardy/ Telegraph Cove. However, I’m going to give more time on this blog for my favourite ever wildlife viewing experience, so keep reading.
Ucluelet and Tofino are located on the Western side of the Island along Highway 4 and are meccas for wildlife enthusiasts. Bears around this area will forage on the shoreline at low tide looking for shellfish and other seafood treats. This area has miles and miles of shoreline, there’s big sandy beaches for humans, but there’s so much untouched shore for bears. The best way to go looking for bears here is by boat, so either you can get a boat tour to look for bears like this one from Tofino, or you can rent kayaks like we did. My family and I rented 2 kayaks from Majestic Ocean Kayaking and went on their evening tour of Ucluelet Harbour.
I wrote something else about this: The Definitive Quick Guide For A Visit To Ucluelet
This tour couldn’t have been better a experience. We kayaked to far side of the harbour around the area of the fish hatchery and got to witness and paddle alongside a Mumma and baby bear exploring the shoreline. My heart broke massively when we saw the baby bear pick up and run along with a plastic bag, but apart from that it was perfect. I don’t think I’ll ever have such a special bear encounter again!
The Great Bear Rainforest
The name ‘Great Bear Rainforest’ kind of speaks for itself doesn’t it. This temperate rainforest snakes along the coast from near the top of Vancouver Island, past Prince Rupert all the way till it hits Alaska. This map explains it better than I could because it’s a large and complicated area.
As the name suggests, this is a prime habitat for bears. So yes, the chances of seeing a bear if you visit the Great Bear Rainforest is pretty high. I’ve highlighted 2 great options for visiting the Great Bear Rainforest below.
1) Spirit Bear Lodge
This is the part of the world where the Kermode or ‘Spirit Bear’ is found. A Spirit Bear is an insanely rare and beautiful white-coated black bear (not an albino bear!) My absolute dream is to one day visit the Spirit Bear Lodge and get to view one of these awesome creatures. According to their website, Spirit Bear Season is from September- October (due to hyperphagia), so put it in your calendar!
Visiting the Spirit Bear Lodge is not only an incredible experience, but it supports Indigenous Tourism too! The Spirit Bear Lodge is located near Klemtu, on the traditional unceded land of the Kitasoo/Xai’Xais Nation, and it is run by the Nation. In 2019, IMAX, Pacific Wild, Ian McAllister, and Jeff Turner collaborated on a film all about the Great Bear Rainforest and The Spirit Bear, this is a great option to learn more about the area, and quell your wanderlust a little bit. Happening to know one of the women who works as a bear guide here, and seeing her Facebook posts of her work has heightened my absolute NEED to visit this area and see the bears first hand.
2) Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park
This is one of the most accessible parts of the Great Bear Rainforest. I guess. Actually, the Port Hardy/ Telegraph Hardy is probably the most accessible part of the GBR. I can’t go into great detail about that area as I haven’t visited and don’t know much about it. You know me though, I want to change that soon. But, anyway, back to Tweedsmuir. Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park is located a 5.5 hour drive west from Williams Lake and just inland from Bella Coola. You’re probably already trying to do the mental calculation in your head right now. So yes, from Vancouver this is approximately a 12 hour drive. Oh also, there’s a part of this drive, known as ‘The Hill’ which I would not recommend to nervous drivers. That’s a blog for another day, for now I’ll leave you to do your own research on it.
The best time to visit Tweedsmuir South is when the salmon run (see how those factors I talked about earlier are coming into play?!) This area is prime grizzly habitat and it’s so easy to see them fishing for salmon here in the Atnarko river. If you have the opportunity, stay at the Tweedsmuir Park Lodge during salmon season. This lodge is in the heart of the Provincial Park, has adorable cabin accommodation, and literally has bear viewing on their property. If you visit the park in the summer there’s still a high chance of seeing bears. My bear encounters when I visited in July ranged from a griz running onto the road, to hearing a griz growl on a hiking trail.
The Rocky Mountains
The chances of seeing a bear around and about Jasper/ Banff/ Lake Louise area is incredibly high. It’s rare to spend time in the Canadian Rockies and not catch a glimpse of bear (unless it’s hibernation season). However, it is possible. I don’t mean to boast but I have achieved it; I once drove over 4000 km in prime bear habitat and saw zero black bears and believe me, I WAS LOOKING. Keep your eyes peeled wherever you drive, and where other cars are stopped with their hazards on, stop safely with them. It could be anything from an elk to a Grizzly with her cubs. I find in National Parks it’s almost always worth it to take the time to pull off and see what other people have stopped for. But obviously, stay in your car until you have identified that whatever you’re stopped for is far away enough that you’re not in danger.
Grand Teton/ Yellowstone National Park
So, not a classic destination from Vancouver, but I couldn’t resist throwing this one in. If I drove from Vancouver to Wyoming and saw 4 grizzly bears there, you can too! This place holds a special place in my heart, and I think that is partly because it was where I first saw a wild grizzly. You should visit this part of the world anyway, but if you’re hoping to see a bear I would absolutely recommend visiting either of these national parks around the end of May/ beginning of June. In Spring the grizzly population emerges, often with babes in tow.
I wrote something else about this: The Best Spots for Magical Photos In Grand Teton National Park
I hope from this blog you’ve learned what Hyperphagia is, realised I know too much about luxury bear-viewing lodges I can’t afford to stay at, and maybe you’ve got some ideas about your next excursion for bear viewing from Vancouver. Happy wildlife viewing 🙂
