What's new // Notes from the field
Get the stories from researchers and team members in the field. From collecting data to wading in the bog, find out how our science and collaboration is about people and place.
The sound of the grizzly’s jaws crunching down on the bones of a salmon echoed up and down the Koeye River Valley. As we watched from our canoe, drifting silently on the water, the beautiful female bear devoured a big chum that she had corralled in a side pool created by a fallen tree. She…
White caps licking my gumboots, I make the leap from water taxi to gillnet fishing boat off the North coast of Vancouver Island. A burly Viking type fisherman, Calvin Siider, welcomes me aboard. I am one of many volunteers helping collect sea lice this year with Raincoast researcher Corey Peet. The success of our collections…
When I saw Owikeeno Lake from the plane my jaw dropped and my nerves soared. There was no mistaking it – brilliant emerald green stretching far beyond the restrictions of my little window. It’s amazing that a lake with so much glacial silt supports salmon at all, let alone the famed runs of Rivers Inlet.
I needed a renewal. Spring had sprung some time ago and I was envious of the plants outside my office window that seemed a lot more active than I. After a long winter of computer work, it was time again to visit the wolves and the forests that had changed my life forever.
There are some places in this world that can expand our notion of what is possible. Last month, when I spent 10 days on board Achiever in Hecate Strait, I quickly realized that I had found one of those places. Hecate Strait is the body of water between the Great Bear Rainforest and the Queen…
Fifteen-month old Callum is a creature of the coast. He bellyflops in bone-chilling ocean waves at sunset, laughs in delight, then runs back for more again and again until he is paralyzed by the cold. At an age when most toddlers are learning to climb stairs, he navigates over roots and fallen trees with the…
A personal understanding of the places we are trying to protect is requisite for working as a Raincoaster. In this spirit, members of our salmon aquaculture team climbed aboard the SV Achiever last month and embarked on a journey of the Great Bear Rainforest. Under the wing of Alexandra Morton, we skirted the shores of…
With each step my foot sinks into a thick mat of woven moss and with each step I wonder whether there is anything beneath this mat to support my weight. I step cautiously, just in case, but I’m also trying to keep up with my partner, Chester Starr (the Lone Wolf), who moves swiftly through…
This spring has sprung the 4th full season for the Rainforest Wolf Project and an opportunity for reflection. I think back on our early days – only Bella Bella’s Chester Starr (“The Lone Wolf”) and I were out in a tiny Raincoast boat exploring for wolves, guided by local knowledge, topographic maps, and a bit…
In our last dispatch we had not yet learned of the locations of the 2002 “home sites”, where wolves give birth and care for their young. Wolves are habitual creatures but our early spring searches had failed to locate the sites in areas they had been the previous year. By mid August, however, we found…
After a long winter analyzing last year’s samples and data, our team is happy to be back in the footsteps of rainforest wolves. This spring was good to us – the “wolfiest ” session to date. We saw 17 different wolves from five different packs, and many of them several times. Each day we come…
Bella Bella, 2001 We all wore waders, we split up into three groups and headed up the river, as far as we could go. Ian and Chris went WAY up there. Erica and I began our trek just at the mouth of river, and followed a trail up the steep cliffs. We crossed a rippling…