The Grizzlies of Glendale

West Coast

By Duart Snow

Glendale Cove, on BC’s Knight Inlet, is protected habitat for grizzly bears – and the ideal spot to rub shoulders with these rulers of the coastal rainforest.

Cruisers who venture north of the BC coast’s major tidal rapids quickly learn that they’re not in Kansas anymore. The big passes not only divide the popular cruising grounds to the south from the less-travelled country to the north. They are gateways between the “civilized” south – where humans are in charge – and the “wild kingdom” that is home to some of North America’s most formidable wildlife.

You don’t have to venture far beyond the rapids to see signs and hear stories of black bears, grizzly bears and cougars. Black bears are a common sight as they forage along beaches and channels north of Desolation Sound, and finding their fresh scat adds an extra thrill to hikes ashore. Grizzlies are much harder to spot away from the remote and rugged coastal mainland, while cougars are the ghosts of the wilderness: stealthy predators that worry folks up here way more than the bears do.

At Port Harvey, our first stop on a recent cruise to the Broughtons, we learned that a grizzly sow and her cub had been cruising back and forth across East Cracroft Island, turning up alternately near the marinas at Port Harvey and Lagoon Cove. Their regular beach visits were the talk of the docks. We weren’t lucky enough to see them, but we jumped at the chance to join a tour to nearby Glendale Cove, a tidal estuary on Knight Inlet that attracts one of BC’s largest concentrations of grizzlies. We hoped to see bears up close and learn more about living with them…in peace.

Tide Rip Grizzly Tours operates from Telegraph Cove on Vancouver Island but collected us at Lagoon Cove en route to Glendale, which lies about 25 miles farther up Knight, North America’s longest inlet (see sidebar). We joined naturalist Derek Kyostia, biologist Matt Allen, a British student spending his summer on the West Coast, and eight other guests aboard a 25’ crew boat for the day’s adventure.

The trip to Glendale is spectacular in itself. Knight Inlet slices through densely forested coastal mountains – their steep slopes and cliffs drop into deep water that is tinted a brilliant milky turquoise by glacial deposits from the big rivers that feed the inlet. Cruisers can visit Glendale Cove and explore Knight in their own boats, but big tides, strong currents and winds, and rocky shorelines with few anchorages beyond Glendale make it a challenging destination for cruisers or kayakers.

Like many harbours on this part of the coast, Glendale was once busy and populous. A salmon cannery and logging operation supported a population of up to 1,000 in their heyday but now only traces of industry remain. The Glendale Creek estuary is the heart of a special management zone where grizzly and black bears are protected from trophy hunting, and it is a centre of wilderness tourism focused on viewing the grizzlies in their natural habitat. A wilderness lodge now occupies the old cannery site.

Glendale Cove is a notch in Knight Inlet’s rugged southern shoreline that gives way to a broad tidal flat at its head, where the creek meets the ocean. At a float on the cove’s west side, we transferred from the crew boat to a flat-bottomed aluminum skiff fitted with benches and a raised viewing platform and headed for the creek.  

This is classic bear habitat: the wide tidal flat is thick with the sedge grass that bears feed on when they emerge from hibernation in the spring, and it supports late-summer runs of pink, chum and coho salmon that fatten them up for winter. In settings like this up and down the coast, cruisers can expect to encounter grizzly and black bears, especially when salmon are running.

There are eight to 10 resident bears in the Glendale management zone but the salmon runs draw up to 50 or 60 transient bears to the area. At just 41 square kilometres, the reserve is very small by comparison with the typical range of grizzlies: 100 square kilometers for females and 1,000 or more for males.

Knight Inlet Facts

  • Knight Inlet is the largest of the major inlets on BC’s south coast – and longest inlet in North America. It reaches 67.5 nautical miles from Queen Charlotte Strait to the Klinaklini and Franklin rivers at its head. (See CHS Chart 5515 - Knight Inlet).
  • Glendale Cove (50° 41.2’ N, 125° 43.7 W) lies about 50 nautical miles east of Queen Charlotte Strait. If you visit in your own boat, anchor in the bight south of Macdonald Point but be aware that strong summer westerly winds can blast right over the headland here.

Bear Tours

Originally published here.