Bears! Dease Lake (9 June)


It rained throughout the night and the morning promised more of the same. As we drove off it began to snow but we dropped altitude quickly and sidestepped the possibility of being snowed in.
The trip took us about 100 km east along the AlCan Highway before we turned south at Nugget City. The road became narrower, windier, and unmarked. It also displayed some very pretty countryside. 






At one point we were in a forest that had been burned by wildfire. The trees were still standing and there was regeneration but recovery takes a very long time at high altitude and high latitude.


 
About 60 or so km before we reached Dease Lake we saw three bears; a mother and two cubs from the previous season. We stopped to look at them and they showed only a fleeting curiosity about us as they moved towards us, pulling plants and chewing them. We could hear the plants being pulled and chewed. 






At one stage one of the cubs sat up on its backside.



A little later we saw another bear with two much smaller cubs, about the size of cats. We assume they were this year’s cubs. She ushered them up a bank and disappeared before we could photograph them.

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