In August 2023 we set off on a great adventure to Vancouver Island in Canada. Our good friends, Kate and Mike, leant us their van, so we packed it with scuba diving gear and mountain bikes and off we went. Kiwi, our dog, thought it was the best time ever, she has no idea why we decided to live in a house again. As we travelled without a plan we expected to spend two weeks on Vancouver island and instead spent two months. Everywhere we went we met wonderful local people and they kept giving us great recommendations of where to go next, it was such a great way to travel. On my dream list of animals to photograph on this trip was Orcas and Bears, so of course many of my questions to the locals were about the best places to see either. We both came back from this trip dreaming about building our own van. And Kiwi very much support this dream. These are some of my favorite images from the trip.
This is the Van setup! This image was our first night where we stayed at a site we found on iOverlander. It was awesome and free!
Above is all the big ships outside of Vancouver and below is the unreasonably pretty University of British Columbia.
We spent the first few days around Vancouver, enjoying the city beaches, the markets, the food, the university. It was great!
James and I in the shadow and Vancouver in the background!
People always ask me why I shoot film! The above image is shot on medium format film and below it is shot on digital. I love the film photo more! Which one do you like?
This dog beach was so cool! From memory it was called Spanish banks, or right next to Spanish banks... It was super shallow water and the dogs could run free and Kiwi kept making new friends, it was awesome.
This is the first photo from Vancouver Island. This shot is from Englishman's falls. It was a gorgeous place and the campground was run by such a cute old man who let us stay in the day use area even though they were fully booked!
We spent some of the time in civilisation and some of the time we drove the logging routes and found wild campsites, like at this gorgeous lake.
We had solar on the roof, and starlink for internet, and we lasted for a few days on the battery power before we needed to charge again. it was great.
This little frog is the most dangerous animal we met on this trip!
The stars were fantastic!
This shot is from a whale watching tour we took out of Port McNeil. It was wonderful. The captain told us about the research in Orca communication which had been pioneered on Vancouver island. They have identified each Orca based on their fin and then tracked the family and listened to the different dialects in different pods. This is where they learnt about the difference between local orcas and transient orcas. Orcas are easily one of the coolest animals on this earth, and I am so fascinated by how intelligent they are.
This photo is taken from the beach of the back of Malcolm Island, at the Bere point Campground. They come up to rub their bellies against the pebbles and hence get really close to shore.
Everywhere we went I asked the locals where I could see bears in the wild. As the salmon were running we decided to go to Campbell River, where there had been lots of bear spotting recently. The best thing about seeing bears looking for salmon is that the bears don't care so much about you, and I of course didn't want to disturb the bear in any way.
So off we went to Campbell river, all the bear photos below are from there!
In Swedish we call blackberries bear berries, now I know why! This bear above was right outside our van as we woke up one morning and James got a little startled looking outside as we had just discussed where to drive to to look for bears. "Tess bring your camera and come outside, but don't go to the right!!" We both jumped out as quietly as possible and peaked behind the van at the bear in the bushes. The locals walking by with their dogs were a lot more complacent about the massive bear in the bushes. Every time they walked by the bear would sit up in the bushes to see what was going on.
This is actually quite a crazy story. This bear came walking along the river as James was fishing. The fishes James had caught was tied on a rope in between the rocks. The bear smells the fish and decides it is fresh, grabs it and walks off with James' three salmon! WOW. I was standing completely still only a meter away from this bear as they walked past me with the fish. I've never been that close to such a big wild animal before.
Also don't worry, no hooks were left on the fish at this point so it's unlikely the bear got injured by eating the fish. But that was lucky because we would have not dared to pick a fight with the bear over the fish anyway...
This is the same bear among the fishermen further up the river. This is after the bear had devoured James fish in the bushes.
It was so cool to see bears in the wild! I was dreaming about photographing a bear in the wild and I am so happy with having seen so many of them! Wow.