BROUGHTONS IN THE BALANCE

SALMON RUNS ARE FAILING AND GRIZZLIES SEEM TO BE ON THE MOVE IN THE ISLANDS BETWEEN MAINLAND B.C. AND NORTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND. WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE BROUGHTON ARCHIPELAGO?

- JAKE MACDONALD

ON A FOGGY WEST COAST morning in October, I pull on boots and rain gear and get ready to go looking for grizzlies. My guide, K’odi Nelson, meets me down at the dock and introduces Sherry Moon.

“She’s our top guide,” says Nelson. “When we’re in the woods, Moon leads the way and I cover the rear. We both have spray, and there’s never been a case of a grizzly attacking a group of more than three people, so we should be okay.”

They both work for Sea Wolf Adventures, an Indigenous-owned agency that guides tourists in bear country. We cruise at slow speed into the Broughton Archipelago — a maze of foggy islands between the coast of central mainland British Columbia and northern Vancouver Island. The sea is smooth as paint, spattered with flocks of murres and the occasional V-wake of a swimming seal. Forested palisade cliffs lean up into the mist. Every few kilometres, a burst of spray announces the appearance of a humpback whale. After the better part of an hour, we reach the precipitous slopes of the mainland. In the creeks and rivers of these coastal mountains, salmon return home to spawn and die. And where there are salmon, there are grizzlies.

At the top end of a narrow fiord, we stop at a tidal flat. As we prepare to go for a walk, Nelson apologizes. “I’m normally a happy sort of guy, so sorry if I seem a bit quiet. I’m feeling kind of heartbroken.”

Mud sucks at our boots as we hike across the tidal flat. Nelson is a hereditary Chief of his band, and he’s worried about the salmon. We stop here and there, examining wide excavations where grizzlies have rototilled the turf, digging up edible roots. Nelson kicks at a heap of manure, hoping for fish fins. “It’s October, the bears should be feeding on salmon, not plants.”