A mammoth Spirit Bear ambles through a stream in the Great Bear Rainforest .
Spirit Search
A journey deep into B . C .’ s coastal wilderness in hopes of seeing the rarest bear in the world .*
By KIM BROWN SEELY
“
JUST
LOOK FOR SOMETHING
YELLOW ,” Marven Robinson says when we finally take off in search of the spirit bear . We ’ re speeding past British Columbia ’ s massive , uninhabited Princess Royal Island in his aluminum fishing skiff . “ The bears sometimes come down here to feed .”
I look and look . Each white-yellow patch along the rocky shore turns out to be something else : a cedar stump , a weathered log , a boulder . But my husband , Jeff , and I are finally here – here in the epicenter of B . C .’ s Great Bear Rainforest ! – home of the legendary Kermode bear ( or spirit bear ), one of the rarest animals in the world .
I smile . This is what I ’ ve been hoping for . If we didn ’ t understand just how wild and remote and storm battered this stretch of the Pacific Northwest Coast was when we first left on this epic sailing journey weeks ago , we do now , flying across the water with Gitga ’ at
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