Author Topic: Hello from Canada  (Read 3590 times)

RambleOn

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #30 on: 03:26:32, 04/08/11 »
Thanks Mananddog ... I hope you get to walk your LEJOG in 2013 ... it is a fantastic experience.  You'll find links to some great walker and dog blogs on my links page (if you haven't already read them that is).


Glad you enjoyed your visit to BC roddyp.  I've seen a lot of bears over the years but fortunately not when I was on foot.  A fellow up island was attacked by a bear a few weeks ago while picking berries and he's still recovering in hospital.  It was a bit of a miracle that he survived.  One thing I haven't done that I would like to do is to observe grizzlies fishing in the rivers up the coast ... but from the safety of a boat  ;)

DonnaNook

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #31 on: 08:16:27, 04/08/11 »
Hi everyone,


My name is Steve and I hail from Canada's west coast.  I've been visiting and enjoying walks in the UK for over 25 years.  Last year I completed a LEJOG and without doubt it was my greatest adventure to date. 


Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve and welcome the Forum.  O0   
     
If you want to do a long walk, i would recommend doing the C2C starting from St Bees to Robin Hoods Bay it's a walk i did last year and it was fantastic. O0
 
Donna
« Last Edit: 08:24:28, 04/08/11 by DonnaNook »

mananddog

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #32 on: 08:25:52, 04/08/11 »
  I've seen a lot of bears over the years but fortunately not when I was on foot.  A fellow up island was attacked by a bear a few weeks ago while picking berries and he's still recovering in hospital.  It was a bit of a miracle that he survived.  One thing I haven't done that I would like to do is to observe grizzlies fishing in the rivers up the coast ... but from the safety of a boat  ;)

I have been in Canada 5 or 6 times in BC and Alberta and had some close encounters with bears, the nearest in Waterton where a black bear just walked right into the camp pitch, sniffed me over from about 10m away and wandered off. My most nerve wracking was also in Canada in Kootenay where I rounded a bend in the trail to almost walk into the ars*end of a grizzly - OK about 30m from a gizzly then - but at that distance it makes little difference - my heart still pounds when I think of it. Fortunately he was too busy digging to notice me.

dibble

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #33 on: 08:51:35, 04/08/11 »
That's really cool mananddog.  8)
 
I felt a right fool doing the stomp stomp thing with my feet and talking loudly, but thought I'd be better being an alive fool than a half dead fool being attacked by a bear.   ::)
 
There wasn't any moose either, but plenty of signs everywhere and my mates said that they are BIG.  I don't think I can imagine how big.   :o
 
But, both me mates have seen both bears and moose.
 
I was once hoping to go on a bear watching hol based on from a boat in Vancouver Island, but at the time, the hol didn't materialise.   :P
 
Another time it might happen... O0
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

mananddog

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #34 on: 09:09:27, 04/08/11 »
That's really cool mananddog.  8) 
 

Maybe but I had trouble keeping my cool at the time.
I have climbed and hiked in the Mountains in the US and Canada probably 20 times but only seen bears on half those trips and moose only in Yellowstone and Tetons (and they are BIG) so you have a few more trips to do yet Dibble. Bears nicked my food on one occasion in the Sierra Nevada. On my first climbing trip to Yosemite my mate said he kept seeing bears - only for them to dissapear when I looked. This became a running joke until, fed up, he grabbed his camera and said "Right I'll show you!" and raced off into the forest. This was in the days of film cameras and he had a fixed focal length point and press. When the pics came back there was a bear filling the frame - he must have been 4m from it "Told you so!" he said.
 
When you are in a tent in the dark and something is sniffing around outside, it is probably only a racoon but I can readily convince myself it is a bear.
I have seen wolves in Canada but I still have never seen a wild mountain lion which is on my to-see list, despite going to the Sawtooth mountains (Idaho) to look for them.

dibble

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #35 on: 09:32:47, 04/08/11 »
Oh, thanks for sharing that mananddog.
 
How amazing all that is!  I never realised you'd
been and done all that!
 
Wow to everything you posted.    8)   Thanks!  :)
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

mananddog

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #36 on: 09:40:42, 04/08/11 »
Funnily enough I pulled out a T-shirt this morning when going to take the dog for a walk. It is a bit holey and battered but so is all my stuff, and on it was the logo Yosemite 1987! AND it still fits! Sorry to hijack thread

dibble

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #37 on: 09:52:05, 04/08/11 »
Sorry to hijack thread
Me too...
 
but it has been good to read...  O0
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

RambleOn

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #38 on: 15:27:14, 04/08/11 »
I love hearing the stories so keep them coming.  There have been a lot of cougar/mountain lion encounters this summer, more than usual.   The latest was in the Rockies over the weekend:


http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Cougar+tracked+killed+after+attack+year+popular+Kananaskis+recreation+area/5197335/story.html [nofollow]


dibble - by any chance was the boat holiday you considered aboard the "Maple Leaf"?

dibble

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #39 on: 23:13:18, 04/08/11 »
Hi Rambleon...
no it wasn't the Maple Leaf...
but that does look fantastic!
 
Ever since I saw this post a few hours ago, I've been
looking for the hol I saw 4 years ago.. but I can't find it.
 
I remember that it was a remote location and the only way
it could be reached was by sea plane... and it was a 3 day
bear watch.
 
I wish I could say which one it is, but I can't find it now.
 
I did find this though..
 
all about bears in parks..
 
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/misc/bears/bearsaf.html
 
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

Kiowan

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #40 on: 20:17:57, 06/08/11 »
I've only been to BC once and California on another occasion and I have seen quite a few black bears including one with 2 cubs.  Thankfully I was always driving, if I was on a mountain trail and some some i'd be very uncomfortable, not easy to be comfortable knowing that the animal you're looking at can do everything better than you can.  Only wild animals I ran into were on a trail in Yosemite late in the evening, was a pair of Bobcats, the larger one crossed the path less than 10 metres away after watching us from some rocks for a while, if they were Cougars I don't think we'd have been lingering.

I don't think i'd fancy walking alone in Canada, did it on my last trip in US as was no real choice and it was quite eerie out in the remoter parts of Lassen Park (near the cinder cone), never saw a sole all afternoon and it was so quiet, was paranoid I was being stalked  ;D

Moose are big, never seen one, only a caribou.


 
« Last Edit: 20:21:11, 06/08/11 by Kiowan »

Kiowan

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #41 on: 14:32:15, 08/08/11 »
Seems my photo got replaced due to hotlinking, this was what it was meant to be


 

dibble

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #42 on: 15:40:08, 08/08/11 »
Oh wow, my mates kept telling me that they were BIG and I had
to look out for them whilst we were travelling...

that is so OH!  Thanks for the pic.   O0
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you." JN.Harris

RambleOn

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #43 on: 17:04:00, 08/08/11 »
What a great photo!  In regards to Canadian trail etiquette ... if a moose enters the trail on your left it has the right of way, if a moose enters the trail on your right it has the right of way.  :P


Hi dibble - there are quite a few operators offering bear watching adventures up the coast (but I know the owners of the Maple Leaf so I thought I'd ask).  I would love to see a Spirit Bear but they are extremely rare and only number a few hundred.  I believe there was a programme about them in the UK last year ... I remember a walker I shared part of the Pendle Way with mentioned he'd seen it.

mananddog

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Re: Hello from Canada
« Reply #44 on: 07:28:42, 09/08/11 »
I would love to see a Spirit Bear but they are extremely rare and only number a few hundred.

I had to look this up! I saw a cinnamon bear in Waterton NP, which was pretty cool, it stood out like a sore thumb on the hillside, a lovely pale reddish blonde/beige colour.

 

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