Great Bear Rainforest
Great Bear Rainforest
Ed Note: Do you have a popular travel destination that will also feed your soul? Maureen Gordon shares her experience in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada.
I do have a place that feeds my soul and affected the course of my life. It’s called The Great Bear Rainforest, and it’s an area of fjords, islands and rainforest on the central and northern coast of British Columbia, Canada.
There are no roads in it, so you have to travel by water, which on its own is enough to lighten the soul of a city person as I was.
You enter the fjords and cruise up them to the end, which is typically a wide meadow with a small river running through it. In June, lupins and lilies bloom among brilliant green sedges, and grizzly bears walk around munching the sedges. In September, thousands of salmon are beating their way up the rivers and the grizzlies are back, this time catching salmon to eat.
All of this is at the foot of 2,000-foot-high cliffs of granite with waterfalls dropping off them into the river or sea below, and the coastal temperate rainforest fringing the meadows.
It’s awe inspiring. First, the cliffs are impressive and, really, the whole place is impressive – structural, filled with the sounds of waterfalls, eagles and ravens, and filled with life that is completely unconcerned about human matters.
The salmon are also impressive, beating their way up the rivers to spawn and then die, and, at the same time feed the entire rainforest from bears right down to the trees themselves.
And finally, entering these systems and seeing bears and some of their seemingly understandable behaviour, plus evidence of “bear culture” all around – mark trails, rub trees, day beds, etc. You really realize that this is the kingdom of the bears, and you, the human do not actually own the whole world. In this place, you are the visitor, and they are accepting you but keeping an eye on you at the same time.
I was so moved when I first visited it that I ended up leaving my job in the high tech sector and convincing the person that took me there to hire me so I could be in touch with the place more and more. That was in 2003 and it remains a wonderful travel destination that will feed your soul. I am still going back every year with Kevin Smith and the schooner Maple Leaf.
To learn more about Great Bear Rainforest, visit Maple Leaf Adventures at http://mapleleafadventures.com/
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