A Bears' Life
A short backgrounder on the lifecycle of a Black bear.

from the story - On Haida Gwaii Black bears hibernate for 4-6 months each winter and emerge from their dens in April or May. At that time they usually head for the estuaries to feed on sedges and greens. They also eat stinging nettle, fireweed, horsetail, various rushes, ferns, cow parsnip, Pacific hemlock parsley, beach lovage and skunk cabbage.


Bear Fat Makes the Best Biscuits
An article about the bear hunting licence transfer and trophy hunting on Haida Gwaii.

from the story - I am not a hunter. It’s not that I have anything against guns either. I’ve handled guns, fired them at targets: Bull’s-eyes, bottles, cans, and skeets. In responsible, capable hands I’m quite comfortable with them. Guns are tools, like an axe, a hammer, or a wheelbarrow, only there’s a mystique around guns owing to their purpose: Guns are designed to kill.


TERRITORY - Art Show Queen Charlotte
from the story - How many different shades of black are there? How many different ways to look at a bear? Forty-three works of art about bears and territory were entered in the recent art show sponsored by the Gowgaia Institute.

The Queen Charlotte venue was the Visitor Information Center, where black display panels were arranged like dark, inter-connecting caves. From them emerged the art works, predominantly black and red: bear fur and bear blood.


TERRITORY - Art Show Masset
from the story - Meeting a bear, whether in real time or story, is always a Bear Event. There is awe, a current of fear. Recall is in technicolour. The power and grace of bear loping across muskeg, sun glinting black fur silver. Bear swiping a 5 gallon bucket of Rediscovery’s peanut butter, a sorry trail of giant peanut butter poops. Cubs tumbling across a mountain meadow. Bear fishing the Yakoun. Bear on a back porch drunk on brandied fruit. Bear carcasses, a horrid, huge pile of them. Bear turning over rocks for crab along the Narrows. .
IT'S SIMPLE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, MAKE A CHOICE