MYRIAM CASPER
BRITISH COLUMBIA
NATURE & WILDLIFE
Stanley Park, the perfect city escape. This tranquil oasis is blooming with urban wildlife, beautiful gardens, and a forest with roughly 500,000 cedar, fir and hemlock trees.
The Beauty of Transitions
I can never forget those special mornings when the sun is peeking out warming the forest after a cold night. The forest fog slowly disintegrating, leaving its presence as tiny droplets of water providing water to the trees, plants and animals which in return releases forest fragrance into the air.
I love the point when fall is on the verge of becoming winter, when the skeleton of the landscape is becoming perfectly visible, presenting its incredible artistic shapes but still holding onto a few colourful leaves, which in turn waits for the wind to finally carry them over.
All my senses are having just the best time.
I was fascinated to learn that cougars, wolves, elks and bears used to run wild in the area.
I could only imagine the young and strong cougar I once saw in Capilano trail crossing the Lions Gate Bridge and entering the park.
Here's an article with a story about 1911 Stanley Park’s last cougar met a bloody and dramatic end.
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Now, back to these days.. while most animals use either sight, sound, or smell to hunt, I noticed that this little creature that looks like a masked bandit "sees" with its hands. Touch is the raccoon's most conspicuous sense. And although they can act just like bandits and be a terrible creature for some, they are adorable for my camera. I just love their way of being.
Although no bears or cougars are in the park these days Stanley Park still is quite wild. Coyotes, eagles, beavers, great blue herons, squirrels, racoons, ducks, Canada geese to name a few.
I watched the Great Blue Heron stalking its prey slowly and methodically. When the right time arrived, its neck and strong beak shot forward like a loose arrow and literally speared a fish out of the water. The power of precision!
The Grizzly Bears of the Grouse Mountain
Meet Grinder, one of the two grizzly bears living in Grouse Mountain, Vancouver B.C. Grinder was orphaned on June 5th, 2001 in Invermere, British Columbia. His mother's disappearance remains a mystery; he was found wandering alone on a logging road, dehydrated, thin, weak and weighing only 4.5kg. He was taken to a local veterinarian where he was given supportive care until he could be delivered to the Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife.
And meet Coola!
In 2001, Coola was found orphaned on a highway near Bella Coola, BC. His mother had been killed by a truck and, of her three cubs, Coola was the only one to survive. Coola is an easygoing bear who’s content to let Grinder take the lead in new discoveries. He can usually be found submerged up to his neck in the large pond, carefully feeling around for his underwater 'bath toys' - a log, large bone and favourite rock.
Another great spot to find some wildlife is just a drive away from Vancouver, Brackendale, a small community in the First Nation Squamish Territory in British Columbia. This area has long been recognized as one of the most significant areas of wintering bald eagles in North America. The salmon come back to its native place to reproduce and that's a great food opportunity for the eagles. Also, a great escape from the city. The drive is stunning, it shows off one of the many beautiful landscapes of British Columbia.
Walking around nature never disappoints me, I can always find interesting things to photograph such as a log covered with an icy veil, or the reflection of the trees shining their green tones on the lake.
British Columbia must also be explored by kayak. The Deer Group Islands are in the southeast corner of Barkley Sound off Bamfield. They are less known and harder to get to than the neighboring Broken Group of Islands and that's great because you can have a whole beach just for yourself with lots of space for your tent overnight.
"In a cold morning the wind is whispering on the surface of the water exactly at the time when the temperature drops below zero. The water gets frozen revealing the imprisoned wind's last words."
We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.
- Henry David Thoreau, from Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.
British Columbia's nature is wild & beautiful, and it rains a lot. But its beauty can be found no matter the weather, it adds poetry to the visuals.
Leaving behind all the traffic, I get in tune with the new surroundings, and all I hear and feel is the silence. At first it feels heavy, almost as if in a void. I close my eyes and relax completely, and that's when I start hearing sounds of the island, popping in here and there, creating a great symphony.
A distant sound of wings flaps through the air; it gets louder and louder. I open my eyes and see this beautiful majestic black raven passing by. I think of the many stories of Carlos Castaneda and Don Juan.
The discovery of new sounds keeps growing, just as the deep growls and grunts of the sea lions resting on the top of the rocks.
Waves break onto the shore. Pebbles roll down the beach.
The sun is low; rich red color scatters on the sky. I watch a great blue heron elegantly landing on a rock.
Surrendered, we stare at the constant change in light and colors till the darkness of the night ends another inspiring day, watching Mother Earth. And this was just the beginning of a full week, witnessing the island's nature and its wildlife. A true paradise.
"Summertime at a cozy little island that offers you an infinite connection with Mother Nature"
"You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved"
- Ansel Adams