What can living with grizzlies look like? Taking lessons from our northern neighbors

by mitch Friedman, Executive director

Life in grizzly country is, well, like life not in grizzly country.

I spent the first half of September traveling the Canadian Rockies with my wife, Jackie, and Wilma, our recently adopted dog.

We traveled more than 2,000 miles in our Chevy Bolt EV with beautiful weather and stunning scenery. Though we carried bear spray on our hikes, our wildlife sightings were sadly few. But boy, I was pleased with the pro-wildlife attitudes we observed!

We spent time in communities like Hope, Vailmount, Jasper, Banff, Canmore, Nelson, and Rossland, as well as smaller enclaves and campgrounds. In each, we saw excellent sanitation facilities, with bear-proof garbage cans even in the downtown areas.

We also saw quality public information posted as well as art celebrating grizzly bears on murals and statues. Residents spoke about bears as part of the fabric of their area, expressing no fear or hyperbole. All of this is consistent with my experience elsewhere in B.C. bear country, such as Pemberton, Squamish, and Whistler.

As we move toward restoring grizzly bears in our North Cascades, it is common to hear people express fear.

Will life be different in Winthrop, Darrington, Glacier, and Leavenworth?

It will be decades before the grizzly population here reaches densities anywhere near that of the mountains outside the towns I noted.

But even then, assuming thoughtful policy like good sanitation, I think life will be very much like in those towns, which is to say little different than it is here.  Living with bears might be less dramatic than the specter of them that arises in their absence.