The Summer of Fire, Ten Years After

Now that summer is on the wane, and the Numa Fire burning in Kootenay National Park is settling down, we can turn our attention to the summer of 2003, ten years ago, when it felt like much of western Canada was ablaze.

On July 31 that year, a large lightning storm in Kootenay (just south of Lake Louise) started several fires.  Two of them eventually grew into one enormous fire which burned over 17,000 hectares of the park.  It didn't rain for 42 straight days, so every morning we'd wake up to blue skies, but not to the south: behind Mount Temple, the signature peak in the village of Lake Louise, it would look like a nuclear bomb was going off, as smoke from the fires rose to 20,000 feet.

By mid-September, rains and some bold back-burning finally put out the blaze, but since then, life has returned.  We've been watching and photographing the changes in Kootenay, so here's a ten year anniversary montage in images...

August, 2003.  At the height of the 2003 Kootenay wildfires, firefighters take a break after working to save historic Kootenay Park Lodge from the flames.  Photo by park warden John Niddrie.

July 2005. Two years after the fire, the forest floor near Stanley Glacier is covered in arnica flowers.

August, 2007.  Four years after the fire, the Stanley Glacier trail erupts in fireweed.

August, 2013.  Ten years after the fire, young lodgepole pine are now taller than a person near Marble Canyon.

August, 2013.  Burnt trees and pink wildflowers stand in beautiful contrast on the trail through Prospector's Valley. 

Bears Caught on Candid Camera

Living in Lake Louise gives us a better chance of seeing grizzly bears than most people, but often we only get a quick glimpse.  It makes us wonder how the bear is spending the other 23.9 hours of its day.  What if you could be a fly on the wall in the day of a bear?  Or how about three bears?  Wouldn't that be great?

Remote wildlife cameras throughout the national parks are the proverbial “fly on the wall.”  We've written about them before, but they are worth repeat posts because of the images they capture.  Recently, Kananaskis Provincial Park released stills from one of their cameras, located at a “rub” tree.  Trees like this are where bears and other animals leave their calling cards.  Think of them like the Post Office for wildlife.  These pictures have since been a hit all over the world, and if you haven't seen them yet, sit down for two very enjoyable minutes.

Bear Shows at the Lake Louise Inn

This summer, we've partnered with the Lake Louise Inn to present our bear show “Grizzly Groceries: A Gourmet Tour.”  Thankfully, people aren't on the menu, but foods like buffaloberries, salmon, and carpenter ants are, and these delicacies reveal fascinating stories about grizzly bear biology and conservation.  The shows are open to everyone, so until mid-September, join us on Wednesday nights at 8:30 at the Peyto Room at the Lake Louise Inn, in “downtown” Lake Louise.  For directions or information, call the Lake Louise Inn at 403-522-3791.

Grizzly bear teeth tell you a lot about what they eat!

Osprey Webcam Now Broadcasting Live!

Of all the birds here in the Rockies, ospreys are the most willing to put their private lives on display: they hunt for fish over rivers and lakes, and they nest on top of dead trees or power poles, so they're really easy to observe.

Osprey nest on the Bow River Bridge at Castle Junction, Banff Park.

But now you can have an intimate view at the family life of ospreys, courtesy of a webcam near Exshaw, just outside of Banff National Park.  The webcam was installed by the power company Fortis, and went live in early May when a pair of ospreys returned from migration.  Since then, they've spruced up the nest, laid three eggs (between May 8 and May 14),  and taken turns incubating. The real excitement started a few days ago, with the birth of the first chick. Currently, it looks like there's one egg left to hatch, the two newborn chicks are enjoying a post-natal diet of pure sushi!

If you are in Banff or Lake Louise, and want to see osprey in a live setting, our most celebrated pair of  “fish eagles” have a nest on the Bow River Bridge at Castle Junction.  Just take the connector road between Highway #1 and #1A and look at the bridge's western iron girder.

Changing of the Bear Guard

Retired human / wildlife conflict specialist Hal Morrison.

We've been living in Lake Louise long enough to see lots of people come and go. Two weeks ago, the town of Field, just west of Lake Louise, hosted a big sendoff for Hal Morrison and his wife Janice.  Hal had been the head of the human / wildlife conflict team in Lake Louise and Yoho for many years, and did a great job of keeping animals – mostly bears – and people safe.  He was a great storyteller too, sharing stories with many of us locals about how bears behave, and how we should behave around them.

Taking over for Hal is Brianna Burley.  She's been working with Hal for the last six or seven years, and therefore has lots of experience with wildlife.  She's also an academic, and is currently working on her Master's degree from the University of Alberta.  Using cameras mounted on locomotives, she's studying how bears get hit by trains, and what can be done to prevent these collisions.

Brianna Burley takes over as head of human / wildlife conflict team.

Keeping people and bears safe is serious work, but every once in a while, the staff get to have some fun.  A few years ago, Hal and Brianna headed up Panorama Ridge to find a radio collar that had come off grizzly bear #72 during hibernation.  Collars are valuable, so they retrieved it by tracking the signal.  They also got a first hand look at a recently vacated grizzly bar den, which is a rare experience in these parts.

Happy retirement, Hal and Janice, and welcome to your new job, Brianna!

When will Lake Louise melt?

Spring comes late in the Rockies, and when the lakes start to melt, you know that summer is around the corner.  We've been keeping track of the melting date of Lake Louise for 20 years, and the range is quite surprising.  The earliest “ice off” date we've recorded is May 25, and the latest is June 13!

Lake Louise on May 19, 2013

If you're curious about when the lake will be ice free this year, you can watch from home – the Chateau Lake Louise has installed a web-cam on their rooftop!  It looks down and across the lake, and updates every few minutes for a realtime view of the lake.  As we write (May 19 at 10:30 a.m.), the current photo clearly shows full ice coverage.  You can see the outlines of the half-dozen rinks that were used for the pond hockey tournament in February, and if you look along the right hand side of the lake, the thick white stripe is the cross-country ski trail from earlier this winter.

What's your vote for when the ice will come off the lake?

Grizzly Bears and the Wonders of GPS

The middle of March hardly seems like the time to talk bears, especially as it snows and blows among the high peaks of Lake Louise, but the first of Banff's grizzly bears will be awakening any day now.

And for some of those bears, Parks Canada will know the exact moment they emerge from their dens, courtesy of some high tech jewelry.  No, it's not Piaget, it's GPS.

Last summer, Steve Michel, Banff National Park's lead grizzly bear researcher, fitted eleven of the park's grizzlies with GPS collars.  This is the first time this technology has been used systematically in the park, and already, it is revealing more about how bears use the landscape than any past studies.

In 2012, those collars beamed up over 19,000 locations, showing where the bears are spending their time.  Among their favourite places were parts of Banff and Kootenay that burned in wildfires in 2001 and 2003.  These spots have rich berry crops in mid-summer.  Another hotspot was the headwaters of the Cascade River in the heart of Banff's backcountry, which offers secure habitat away from people.

Crossing the Wapta

The most surprising finding from the study was one male grizzly bear who crossed the Wapta Icefield three times!  Steve Michel thinks the bear found it the most direct route from Banff National Park to the Blaeberry Valley in British Columbia.  We've skied up on the Icefield ourselves, and it is the last place we'd expect to see a bear.

By summer's end the GPS collars had revealed the size of each bear's range, how often each bear had crossed the railway (a major risk for bears), and last but not least, when and where the bears went into hibernation in the fall.  The earliest of the bunch went to bed on October 12, and the last of the eleven to den up hit the hay on December 3.

We'll look forward to what the GPS collars reveal this summer.  Watch for an update in the fall.