Her name
was Warrior, for the scar gauged across her nose, just below her left eye. The
close-up of this female Spirit bear (Ursus
americanus kermodei) was captured by photographer Michelle Valberg in the
Great Bear Rainforest. Warrior was one of four intimate close-up face shots
used in a 2019 Canada Post stamp series, featuring also a black bear, polar
bear and a grizzly bear. “Warrior walks around like she owns the forest,” said
Valberg to an interviewer when the stamps were first issued. “There’s a
regal elegance about her stride that’s incredible to watch.” The Spirit bear
has white or cream-coloured fur and has long been featured in the oral
traditions of coastal First Nations people.
Intrigued, I needed to know more about this female
bear, captured so intimately. So vulnerable. So beautiful and somehow iconic of
Canada. I later learned that it is, in fact, the official animal of British
Columbia.
So, I did more research. I’d already watched several
excellent documentaries on the Spirit Bear in its natural habitat in BC’s northern
west coast. An excellent documentary appeared in David Suzuki’s “Nature of
Things” entitled “Spirit Bear Family.”
Narrated and filmed by
Canadian wildlife filmmakers Jeff Turner, the documentary chronicles the lives
of a mother bear and her young two cubs within the Great Bear Rainforest, part
of the largest expanse of temperate rainforest left on Earth. Turner and wife
Sue were the first people to film these elusive creatures twenty-five years
ago. In this episode of Nature of Things, they return with their
children to see the bears again. “Although any bear can be frightened by a
human presence,” Turner says, “experience has taught me that if you are
relaxed, the chances are the bear will be too.”
First of all, the Spirit bear is not an albino; it is,
in fact, a subspecies of American
black bear, which have white fur when they carry a double-recessive gene unique
to their subspecies. Most commonly they are known as the Spirit bear, a
romantic alternate to the Kermode Bear, named after Frank Kermode, a former
director of the Royal BC Museum. To the Gitga’at First Nation they are known as
Moksgm’ol, the Ghost bear. It is
estimated that fewer than 400 Spirit/Kermode/Ghost bears are currently in
existence. Turner also tells us that, while a white black bear
can very rarely occur in other places, the higher numbers—one in ten—of white
bears on these west coast islands is due to their isolation in the Great Bear
Rainforest and the territory of the Gitga’ata people.
 |
| Warrior fishing (photo by Richard Sidey) |
I ran across this wonderful
personal experience of photographer Richard Sidey with Warrior and an older female bear—likely her mother, named Ma’a:
“Early in the afternoon a Spirit Bear appears on the far bank of the river, no
more than ten-metres away from my position. The bear looks around slowly and
sniffs the air, appearing slightly hesitant as it surveys the river scene
ahead. Marven [the Indigenous guide] is speaking quietly explaining that this
is an old bear known to him as Ma’a (Grandmother), due to her having raised at
least three sets of cubs. She is not quite white, but more vanilla in
appearance with darkish rings around her eyes. Ma’a appears to recognise
Marven’s voice, immediately dropping her guard and ever so slowly makes her way
to the river’s edge.
 |
| Ma'a fishing (photo by Richard Sidey) |
All bears fish in different
ways with varying amounts of energy exertion and success. It is immediately
evident that Ma’a one of the passive, patient hunters. Completely still, except
for her constantly swivelling head, she watches and waits for the perfect
opportunity to collect her fish. After nearly twenty minutes of focus she does
just that, and quietly eats her fish just metres from where I sit experiencing
a wave of emotions.” Then Sidey sees another bear approach. “…a second Spirit bear appeared from the forest
behind Ma’a and joined her in the riverbed. This was Warrior, a younger bear
and likely an offspring of Ma’a due to their apparent comfort being in close
proximity of each other. She is beyond striking in appearance, with completely
white fur and a large diagonal scar on her nose [from] which her name was derived.” “Over the next three days I
spent several hours with these two rare and beautiful animals, observing,
learning, filming and photographing. Late in the final day of my journey, I was
watching Warrior at a distance downstream in a dark area of the forest, when
she walked into a narrow beam of afternoon sunshine streaming in from a low
angle. Against the darkness Warrior was illuminated in an intense warm light
that spread throughout her magnificent white coat. With the harsh contrast she
appeared suspended in complete darkness and I became overwhelmed in emotion.
Through a viewfinder filled with flowing tears I took several photographs
before she exited the ray of light and disappeared into the forest.”
Protecting the Spirit Bear and its Habitat
Although
the Spirit Bear is not currently listed as an endangered species, considerable
conservation efforts to maintain the rare subspecies' population have been made,
thanks in part to the bear's cultural significance. Main threats to the bear
include habitat destruction from oil pipelines and trophy hunting of black
bears.
The
Spirit Bear gets most of its protein from salmon during the fall season. salmon
are a keystone species and are important to the nutrient intake of both aqueous
and terrestrial environments. The
salmon contribute nutrients to water during spawning and contribute to the land
with decomposition of their carcasses when predators, such as bears, scatter
them throughout the forest.
Pipeline
spills could cause damage to salmon populations by polluting ecosystems. This would not only affect the bears
but also the entire ecosystem. The bear's
habitat was recently under threat from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines,
whose planned route would have passed near the Great Bear
Rainforest. Indigenous groups including
the Gitgaʼat opposed the pipeline, which was ultimately rejected by the federal
government in 2016.
References:
Reimchen, Thomas E.; Klinka, Dan R.
(2017-10-01). "Niche differentiation between coat colour morphs in the
Kermode bear (Ursidae) of coastal British Columbia". Biological
Journal of the Linnean Society. 122 (2): 274–285. doi:10.1093/biolinnean/blx079. ISSN 0024-4066.
Nina is a Canadian scientist and novelist. She worked for 25 years as an environmental consultant in the field of aquatic ecology and limnology, publishing papers and technical reports on water quality and impacts to aquatic systems. Nina has written over a dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. An award-winning short story writer, and essayist, Nina currently lives in Toronto where she teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her non-fiction book “Water Is...”—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environ- mentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times as 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s most recent novel “A Diary in the Age of Water”— about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—will be released in 2020 by Inanna Publications. www.NinaMunteanu.ca; www.NinaMunteanu.me
