In the Great Bear Rainforest, within the ancestral territory of the Kitasoo Xai Xai’s a beautiful melting pot of wildlife and ecosystems collide. It’s a sacred refuge for bears, wolves, cougars (mountain lions) on land, to name a few, and orcas and humpback whales at sea. What a beautiful experience it was to immerse myself in this remote magical realm of wilderness, guided by the keepers of wisdom of land & sea, indigenous communities. Native land stewarded by native people, the way it should be.

This massive black bear, probably the biggest black bear I’ve ever seen, was fishing for salmon, and after many tries, he got one. Pacific salmon is a keystone species that feeds life into the entire region. This bear didn’t eat the salmon in the river, he took it to the forest and, in doing so, fed the soil with very important nutrients. A perfect example of how protecting spawning streams and migration routes and allowing salmon to return and reproduce everywhere they roam in the wild is essential to keeping our planet and all its inhabitants healthy. The critically endangered southern resident orcas further down south are a sad example of what happens when we interfere with salmon routes with dams and overfishing, driving the southern resident orca population to near extinction.