Roaming freely among the 250 miles of rainforest in Canada is the Kermode Spirit Bear. While it has the name ‘spirit’ this bear is very real and very white. Many First Nations peoples honor the white bear as a spiritual sign and as such protect the bear. But there are other wondrous animals and plants living in this one of a kind area. Some of the trees are more than 1000 years old.
Fun Facts about the Great Bear Rainforest
The Great Bear Rainforest is the only remaining coastal temperate rainforest on the planet that has not been destroyed by people. It is called the “Amazon of the North” because there is no other rainforest in North America that has natural wildlife like the Great Bear Rainforest. The forest stretches for more than 250 miles along the British Columbian coast. Great Bear’s wilderness sits on a total of 21 million acres of land!
Other Animals in the Great Bear Rainforest
The all-white Spirit Bear is not the only interesting animal that makes this area its home. There are also cougars, sea lions, coastal gray wolves, Sitka deer, mountain goats, humpback whales, sea otters, orca, and salmon. Many of the animals who live in this area cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. That makes this area especially precious since once the special plants and animals from this area are gone, they will be gone forever. To this day, many scientists are discovering special plants that only grow there, and whose special properties may offer a cure for many diseases that cause mankind to suffer. The people who live in the Great Bear Rainforest believe that all life is connected, so by being cruel or unpleasant to other living creatures one is actually being cruel and unpleasant to oneself.
Waterfalls and Thousand Year Old Trees
Within the park, you will find wise, old cedar trees that were planted before even electricity was discovered. That is because many of these grandfather trees are estimated to be more than 1,000 years old. The beautiful landscape is also covered with colorful moss that spreads all over the mountains and rivers like a thick, green carpet. Where there are rivers and mountains, you cannot fail to find waterfalls. Water at some of the Great Bear Rainforest rivers is as dark as granite and a lot of ice can be found on the peaks of the mountains.
Visit the Great Bear Rainforest
People say it is best to visit the Great Bear Rainforest between the months of August and October. Do you know why? It is because at this time there are thousands of salmon returning to the rivers from the ocean. For this reason, grizzly bears and Kermode bears are easier to see. It is always hard to spot a Kermode bear (Spirit Bear) and sometimes even the efforts of an expert tracker does not yield any results. The T’simshian people who live in the Great Bear Rainforest believe that the Kermode bear is a sacred animal. When something is sacred, it means that it is connected to God in some way and therefore no one should interfere with it.
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