Bear with me!

My husband travels to various remote places in BC as part of his job as a treaty negotiator for the federal government. He has made quite a few trips to the Wuikinuxv village at River’s Inlet. On his last trip, there were lots of grizzly bears around, not yet fattened up on salmon.

My husband was spending way too much time trying to view bears. Someone suggested Gordon (the Bearded One) staple pork chops to himself and go out for a walk in the evening. My husband knows bears, especially grizzlies, can be dangerous, but until last week when I made him read True stories of bear attacks : who survived and why (by Mike Lapinski), he was a little too eager to seek them out. Now that he’s read about people having their faces ripped off by grizzly claws, (“Hey look, here’s his ear! Hey look, there’s his nose! What’s under that log? Is that a... is that a BUTT CHEEK?”) he's going to be more cautious around these beautiful beasts.

Here's a skinny grizzly that Beardo and his fellow city-slicker negotiators spotted in the village when they were last up there:

“Not worth eating... one of them’s a lawyer! Ptuie!”

One time when The Bearded One and the other city slickers were in River’s Inlet, they went for a little walk down some road. Halfway through the walk, a logger showed up in his truck to rescue them. A grizzly bear was on the road between the city-slickers and the village. Treaty negotiators make the best bear-toys. And they're all fattened up on Timbits! You'd think the city-slickers might think about why the Wuikinuxv DRIVE everywhere in bear season.

Here is spectacular River’s Inlet, where the bears (and the Wuikinuxv) live:

Whole lotta bears hiding in here!

And here’s a beautiful totem pole in the village:

And here are some of the village doggies, enjoying a nap in a truck without brakes. Apparently brakeless vehicles aren't entirely rare in these remote villages. They are just driven slowly enough so as to glide to a stop. And yes, it does appear to be parked in the fire lane!

“Finally, some time off from trying to protect those dorky city-slickers from grizzlies!”

And when my husband isn’t trying to become a succulent bear-meal, he’s flying through mountainous areas in these weenie little planes, where he sometimes gets to sit in the co-pilot’s seat... BECAUSE THERE IS NO CO-PILOT! And no, I don’t know what happens if the pilot comes down with a brain aneurysm mid-flight. I suppose SOMEONE learns to fly very quickly, or else there’s another smouldering wreck hidden in the mountains of British Columbia. I hope those pilots are taking their blood-thinners.

Thank God the Bearded One has life insurance.