Owen Slater Photography

This past weekend in Waterton was unseasonably warm with Saturday above 30 degrees Celsius and little to know wind. Excellent weather for enjoying the park, but I knew that the black bears would be suffering from the high heat and lack of wind and would likely be searching out water to cool off. When I first came across this big male black bear he was busy feeding on berries.  However, after about an hour of being in the direct sunlight he was panting heavily and he kept looking over a small ridge in the direction of a  creek. Within a few minutes he lumbered through the Saskatoon berry bushes, through a small cluster of aspen trees before heading  down the rocky shoreline.  I quickly went to the opposite side of the creek and got into position as he descended the bank.  Without hesitation he walked into the creek and laid down, first on one side and then the other making sure to get as much of his body covered in the cool fast running water.  His panting quickly stopped and for several minutes he just laid in the water…the human equivalent of lounging in the pool with a cold drink in hand!  But a bear in the fall has an insatiable hunger.  They need to eat almost constantly to put on enough weight to survive the winter and so I’m sure his hunger for food quickly overrode his temporary relief from the heat.

Sufficiently cooled off, he makes his way across the creek in search of more food.

Having made his way through the grasslands, his powerful sense of smell lead him to a cluster of berry bushes shaded by the the aspen and poplar forests. The large mountain in the background is Mt. Vimy.

About ten minutes after leaving the big male bear at the base of Mt. Vimy I decided to try my luck at another lake that I have seen black bears swimming in before. Literally within a few minutes of walking along the lake I spotted something swimming on the other side.  From a distance I initially thought it was a beaver because of the distance it was away from the shore and only its head was above the water, but as I got closer and zoomed in with my telephoto lens I realized it was a black bear swimming around the lake!  I couldn’t believe my luck!  It had been 5 years since I last saw a bear in this lake.  I started fumbling with my camera gear hoping that I could capture a few decent photos before she got out of the water. She swam for about 50 meters before she looked in my direction but if she spotted me, she did not care that I was there as she continued along until she reached a shallow point at the tip of the lake.  This photo was taken just prior to that. The dark areas in the water are the shadows cast by the huge pine trees surrounding the lake.

Still not caring that I was nearby, she rolled around in the shallow water playing with sunken sticks like they were bath toys.  She then lifted up her back feet, laid back and surveyed the lake.  A few moments passed before she decided bath time was over. She casually waded over to the shore, walked up the bank and instead of shaking the water off she just drip dried as she disappeared into the pine forest in search of more berries to eat.  Certainly the best few hours of black bear photography that I have had to date and an experience I won’t forget.