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Travel Alberta, All Rights Reserved Written by: Travel Alberta
This story begins with a conundrum: I have spent most of my life avoiding them, often during Alberta hiking.
I have banged dents in my pot sets, having smashed them together for eight hours straight in order to keep them at bay. I have cooked miles from my tent for the same reason that I have gone hoarse belting out every Joni Mitchell song I know at ear-piercing decibels. I have done all this. And more.
Much more.
So, it seemed a bit perverse to be seeking them. In fact, searching for them. Paying to see them.
Bears that is.
Black bears, ursus americanus. Those black actually blue, brown, even blonde beasts that can easily grow to be 500-lb. behemoths, are not, I repeat, NOT a conundrum at all. That's what I learned when I traveled with ex-bear-hunting guide, Shane Hansen, now a tourism operator/guide and co-owner of Iron River Ranch. Having guided for bears in Alberta's Lakeland region for years, Hansen knows exactly when and where in the spring that the various species of fish will be spawning. And that's where I am. Lurking. Safely. Learning the mysteries, myths and magic behind these enigmatic creatures.
Perched 16 ft. above ground on a metal platform, I find myself eye to eye with a nervous yearling, who's cuddling the trunk of a pine tree about 15 ft. across from me. Eyeing the canopy which covers the platform upon which we sit, I hear the scrape of his claws as he slides down the trunk to meet his sibling on another branch. The two black fluff balls cuff each other, rub snouts, lose their footing and then free fall to another limb where their pratfalls begin all over again.
Feeling like Mowgli in The Jungle Book we watch Baloo-like antics for hours. Mom turns up to give them a fishing lesson. A male (boar in bear parlance I am told) lumbers through the area, sending the cubs rocketing to the upper branches where they quiver in fright, so much so the entire tree shakes. All afternoon, they zoom up and down the Jack Pines, skittishly, seeking new frontiers, but only momentarily, before they return to wait for mom. All the while avoiding dad. And us? We are but an audience with a different smell one they can't get any closer to for the slippery metal ladder eludes them as does the platform, for it's just a smidgen beyond what they can jump. I am reminded that this region offers a remarkable experience that's different than the Alberta hiking you can experience elsewhere in the province.
Swiveling around in my treetop chair, Hansen regales us with bear lore...how the Lakeland region has the highest concentration of black bears in Alberta (two bears per sq. km), how breeding occurs in the spring, why Alberta is home to about 40,000 black bears, that a normal litter size is two, how delayed implantation works and so on.
So mesmerizing are Hansen's stories, delivered on a live backdrop of nature, that I didn't notice the skies darkening and the wind scudding across the lake. It was when the tall pines began creaking and a raven started cawing that I noticed my cozy little world of treetops had become soggy, even spooky. Then the cubs started mewling and that's when I knew the setting had become equal parts The Lost World and The Jungle Book. What would happen if our exit strategy through the dense woods failed? Somehow I didn't think I'd be waltzing with Baloo or riding the sleek black back of Bagheera. This was no novel . . . in fact this little adventure smacked of becoming a white-knuckle thriller. "But that's what adventure travel is, isn't it remember you don't have to go to Africa to get a thrill," grinned Hansen as he coaxed us down the ladder and through the forest to the awaiting boat.
So, anybody who's ever told you that you'd have to force the action a bit to get your heart thudding in the Lakeland region is wrong. Iron River Ranch's popular bear watching packages must be pre booked for 2007 well in advance as the 2006 tours are sold out. Iron River Ranch also offers Lakeland Safari Options. If you choose to visit the Lakeland region this year, there is much to do and discover, including excellent birding (just check the Iron River Ranch website under tour details for more information), fishing, other wildlife adventures and, as you'll read below, plenty of Alberta culture to explore, along with Alberta hiking.
Lakeland's other unique and tamer charms, run all summer-long. You could visit the area and scope it out, so to speak, so that you become familiar with the region if you want to book ahead and return one day for the bear tour. This area is most often accessed by first visiting Alberta's international gateway city to the North, Edmonton.
One of the most knowledgeable guides in this area that works closely with Hansen and other highly specialized operators is Cameron Malcolm, owner of Out an' About Tours. Travel with Out an' About and you can visit a buffalo jump, hike a pristine trail, and even follow a voyageur's route. You can experience the coming together of cultures in the fur trade of the 18th century along the North Saskatchewan River with a tour of Fort George and Buckingham House. This is an historic site where the North West Company and Hudson's Bay posts were built in 1792. Travel by jet boat to explore Smudge Island, a favorite campsite of the early voyager. This package includes a tour of heritage churches in Kalyna Country and a visit to Elk Island National Park to view bison and elk.
Fort George and Buckingham House
If you're partial to small museums with a tight focus you'll love Fort George and Buckingham House, 13 km southeast of Elk Point. On the forested cliffs above the North Saskatchewan River, you'll discover the remarkable feats of explorers Peter Fiddler and David Thompson cleanly displayed in this bright 13-year-old facility. Give the spot 45 minutes of your time and you'll leave a whole lot wiser to the ways of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. Excellent maps display the companies' push west and a short interpretive trail leads you by the two original competing posts, erected 400 yards apart. Both were abandoned in 1800 so only cellar depressions, rock piles and the ruins of a palisade wall remain but the interpretive centre does well to connect the dots plus they offer all sorts of hands-on activities and some excellent videos that focus on the critical role the Metis women played.
Plamondon Mud Bog
This Aug. 19-20 event gives a whole new meaning to getting "down and dirty." Massive mud pits lure dozens of gonzo competitors to rev up their tractors, jeeps and monster trucks all in the pursuit of...we're not sure! If you don't fancy the muck, seek refuge in the beer gardens or the children's festival. Plamondon is a 20-minute drive west of Lac La Biche.
Treasure Island
Kids can change moods faster than dot-commies change jobs. So what kind of vacation is sure to suit all of their multifarious tempers? Those under 12 will love a visit to "Treasure Island." Another brainchild of Shane Hansen (owner of Iron River Ranch and the bear watching tours) this one-day tour has family stamped all over it. Armed with identification books, magnifying glasses, compasses, maps and a hunger for treasure, groups of four to six set off aboard a jet boat bound for this forested island. Using plant species as map guides this day trip will leave all members a whole lot richer at the end of their finds! Another picnic favourite, without the "treasure" is a jaunt out to Smudge Island, once a popular spot of the voyageurs who paddled these very waters of the North Saskatchewan River.
Lac La Biche Mission
I slide on to the seat of a well-worn desk and stare up at a Daughter of Jesus nun. The brown-paper wrapped textbook I am given is in French as are the prayers elegantly written on an old slate board at the head of the class. Here I am, in the newly restored convent, which operated from 1856 to 1963, and is considered the second oldest building in the province. From the classroom I head across the hallway to a furnished dormitory where 30 to 40 Metis and Francophone children would have slept at one time. Other rooms are full of religious paraphernalia and odds and sods from ironing boards to carpeted foot warmers, shoehorns and old Singer sewing machines. The tiny 10-pew chapel is still intact with its candle chandelier, cruets, communion bowls, chalices, ciboriums and so on. Do spend time in the mission's interpretive centre, full of excellent archival shots and anecdotes of the trials these explorers and missionaries faced in their four-month epic canoe expeditions from Quebec to Lac La Biche. From their 45 kilo packs they hoofed over mosquito-riddled boggy portages to the 18-hour-a-day paddles the fact anyone ever made it to this outpost is remarkable.
Get the Full Picture
Whether it's bear watching, a three-day canoe trip out of Lac La Biche, tours of Alberta's French communities, Alberta hiking or Kalyna country that draws you to this more remote section of the province a given is that you will leave surprised. So be as ready as you can for the unexpected...the mission in the middle of nowhere, more bird sitings than the rest of the province combined, superb jet boating and fishing, affordable cabin and farmhouse rentals, boreal forests, the Canadian Shield, powwows galore. And when the day's done, do what I did and kick up your boots on the porch chair at Iron River Ranch and watch the sun set over their burbling creek and breathe in the tumble of velvety hills.
Is this how a creature of the North could be born?
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