Roadtrip Wildlife

A Pandemic Roadtrip: Day Four

Prairie Dog on high alert

The fourth day of the drive back to Alaska took me to McLeod Lake on the famed Fraser River of British Columbia.

I was starting to see more wildlife now, and that always adds to the drive for me.  I was woefully unprepared for wildlife photography however, with a cell phone and the 120 shooter, a Kodak 66.  I made do, as best I could.

The first real sighting in BC was a moose.  I did not stop for a moose, nor did I later stop for a caribou.  I see them all the time, as it is.

One of many black bear

I do not normally see a lot of black bear in Alaska, so I stopped to take pictures of a couple of them.  In all, black bear ruled the animal sighting roost: I spotted 17 along the road, all eating the lush grass, like the one in the picture.

This picture came about, mainly because I had spotted a lynx, which is an incredibly rare sighting along a road.  I hit reverse, but by the time I came to where I had seen the wary cat, it had made its way to the tree line.  Just 100 yards further on, was this black bear.  I hadn’t even made it out of second gear yet, so it didn’t take a lot of effort on my part to slow for it.

Further on down the road, I came across a pair of bison. I would go on to spot several on this day. They really are magnificent beasts.

I did not see my first grizzly until the final day of my drive, after crossing into Alaska. It was a sow and her cub. The cub was absolutely adorable, as it stood on its hind legs in order to get a better look at me, or maybe my car. I did slow down in order to attempt to get a picture, but that action seemed to intrigue the mother a tad too much. She started to trot right over to my car, leaving her cub standing on the opposite shoulder. Since I was in a car that sat lower than she stood, and I had an open window for a clear view, I decided the picture wasn’t that important and released the clutch to move forward. The sow continued to trot, and I proceeded to engage second gear.