Advertisement
Friday 24th May 2019 We have seen our first Canadian Black Bear and have some great video footage of him! This has made our day! No: it has made our whole trip! Fantastic! What a wonderful experience!
Today started with a long drive from Winnipeg in pouring rain. At one point the rain was sweeping across the road so much that we feared we might aquaplane! Despite this, driving across the prairies is quite an experience. The wheat fields are huge! At one point we had to wait at a level crossing whilst a freight train went past. It was so long that it took half an hour! Amazing! Eventually we arrived at a small town called Onanole and here we are staying in a lovely B and B. The small restaurant up the road served up the best ribs ever tonight; great little place.
Onanole is close to the entrance to the Riding Mountain Park and tomorrow we are going there. This evening the rain eased off and so we thought we would take a little drive around to see the lakes and woods before attacking the ribs! We saw a few deer and people said ‘There
are a lot of bears around at the moment as well as moose!” so we thought maybe tomorrow when we entered the Provincial Park, we might see some. Well, we didn’t have to wait until tomorrow! As I was driving along John suddenly said “Moose” and two large moose crossed our path. They were too fast for us to photograph. A while later he said “Bear”! I quickly checked the rear mirror, put on my hazard lights and pulled over. John wound the window down, I switched off the engine and we watched this magnificent black bear eating plants by the side of the road. When he became aware of us, he came up to the car, we slowly closed the window. He then went around to the front of the car and peered at us through the window (didn’t photograph him at this point). We were mesmerised. Wow! A real close encounter. Pleased we were safe in the vehicle; only ten minutes earlier we had stopped to go to the loo in a picnic area!
It is such a privilege to see wild animals. We have seen black bears before, in California, but not this close. What a
truly great and memorable day! I wonder what tomorrow will bring!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.106s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 14; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0715s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Barbara Collins
non-member comment
Black bear
Hi Viv and John We have read two blogs together today so struggling to keep up with you. Those bears are really dangerous so glad you were in the car. Dave watches the wildlife programmes and he says they could smash your windscreen if they wanted to. I’m sure you knew what to do in keeping still until he moved off. You took me back to our school geography days being on the prairies. How amazing is that. Lovely pictures. Hope the weather is going to improve as you go West Love Barb and Dave xx