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Unchanged for 10,000 years. Journey to a land of grizzlies, coastal wolves, sea otters and the all-white spirit bear — the rarest bear on earth — in the film Great Bear Rainforest. Hidden from the outside world, the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the wildest places left on earth.
- Q&A With Director Ian Mcallister
In the beginning, many people expected that the film would...
- Official Rules
Two grand-prize winners and their guest will be selected to...
- Sweepstakes
Book a field trip to see Great Bear Rainforest and learn...
- Q&A With Director Ian Mcallister
Feb 15, 2019 · Courtney Howard Variety With a cute vanilla-colored bear as guide into this perfectly preserved place, this riveting, revelatory short educates on the conservation efforts of an indigenous...
- (3)
- Ian Mcallister, Jeff Turner
- Documentary
- Overview
- A BEAR IN THE BUSH IS WORTH TWO IN THE HAND
- SAVING THEIR CULTURE BY SAVING BEARS
An indigenous community reconnects with its heritage by working to end hunting and promote bear-watching in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.
KLEMTU, GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST, BRITISH COLUMBIAThere are stories about the white bears that hide in the deep forest of British Columbia’s coast. Old stories, handed down from one generation to the next for thousands of years, since the last Ice Age gripped the world, and glaciers licked the edge of the rain forest.
One tale, told by the Kitasoo/Xai’Xais Nation, says that as the sheets of ice began to retreat, Raven—the creator of all things—made the animal known as the spirit bear to remind him of the ice and snow. It’s a story that speaks not only to First Nations’ connection with wildlife but also to their deep roots in the Great Bear Rainforest, an area the size of Switzerland that’s home to some 20,000 First Nations people.
Yet in the 1980s when Doug Neasloss, the elected chief of the Kitasoo/Xai’Xais, was growing up, he never heard the origin story of the spirit bear. In fact he never heard of spirit bears at all because for decades the stories about these white-coated relatives of black bears were kept secret. Elders feared that if word of their existence spread, spirit bears—like black and grizzly bears—would be pursued and killed by fur trappers or trophy hunters.
5:54
So in the late 1990s when Neasloss was starting to work as a wildlife guide and his boss told him to go out and look for a white bear, he was skeptical. You guys are out to lunch, he remembers thinking—there’s no such thing as a white bear.
In 1999 Neasloss helped launch the Spirit Bear Lodge from a little red-roofed float house anchored at Klemtu’s docks. Today a luxurious new lodge accommodates visitors from around the world, most of whom come to tour the nearby islands in hope of spotting and photographing bears. All profits go to the tribe. Ecotourism is Klemtu’s second-largest industry, and unemployment has fallen to 10 percent.
In part because of this growing dependence on ecotourism, and because of their long-standing connection to the land, Kitasoo/Xai’Xais was one of 27 First Nations that negotiated with the Canadian government to permanently conserve 85 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest. Finalized in 2016, the Great Bear legislation was a success for both indigenous activists and international environmental groups. (See spectacular photos that reveal the newly protected Great Bear Rainforest.)
But in Neasloss’s view it had one gaping hole: It failed to end trophy hunting for grizzly and black bears.
The Kitasoo/Xai’Xais and other Coastal First Nations have never signed treaties giving up their land rights, and in 2012 they decided to ban trophy hunting in their traditional territories. The British Columbian government, however, exerts legal jurisdiction over much of the Great Bear Rainforest, and despite the nations’ ban, the provincial government has continued to issue tags and licenses to kill grizzly and black bears for their heads or fur. Many indigenous people consider this an affront to their sovereignty and values.
“Our people do not believe in killing an animal unless it is taken for food,” says MaryAnn Enevoldsen, elected chief of the Homalco Nation, which runs a grizzly-viewing area about 200 miles south of Klemtu. “We can show thousands of people the bears in their natural habitat without harming or stressing them out. On the other hand, the ‘pleasure' of killing a bear only happens once and gratifies a few individuals.”
A study by the Center for Responsible Travel found that in 2012 visitors to the Great Bear Rainforest spent 12 times as much money on bear watching as on trophy hunting—and Doug Neasloss’ experience suggests that the two activities cannot co-exist. Several years ago, he was leading a group of tourists among the maze of islands near Klemtu when he glimpsed something dark and motionless in a river estuary. He thought it might be a dead seal. As he nudged the boat closer for a look, the object resolved into the headless carcass of a grizzly. His clients were horrified. Neasloss says hunters make bears more skittish, which means tourists are less likely to see them.
For many First Nations people, ending trophy hunting isn’t just about saving wildlife or benefiting from the money bear-viewing brings to their communities. It’s also about cultural survival. Like many indigenous people, First Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest were marginalized for much of the past two centuries. Traditional religious ceremonies called potlatches were banned by the Canadian government until the 1950s, and sacred regalia was burned as punishment for holding them. Thousands of children were sent to live at government-run “residential” schools, where many were physically abused and forced to abandon their culture. Languages, food, customs, stories, and rituals were all but lost.
Today, First Nations up and down the coast are reclaiming their culture, and bear-based ecotourism is a part of that. Many tribes are rebuilding the “big houses” where potlatches and other ceremonies are held, sometimes with money earned from tourist operations.
Coastal Guardian Watchmen are reconnecting with their traditional lands as they patrol for illegal hunting. And elders no longer fearful of poaching are starting to share the sacred stories about bears they’d kept silent for so long.
Just down a gravel road from the Spirit Bear Lodge is Klemtu’s big house, a massive cedar building constructed in 2001. It’s perched at the edge of the sea, surrounded by mist-shrouded cedars and spruce trees, with an opening in the roof to let out wood smoke. Inside, 24-year-old Barry Edgar is giving a tour. He talks about a new online database that’s preserving digital recordings of traditional stories and about the new generation of children who will grow up hearing ancient tales about Kitasoo/Xai’Xais’ unique relationship with bears, told beneath the carved totem poles of the big house.
“Culture is like a flower," Edgar explains as visitors snapped photos of the intricate carvings. “It needs to be in the sun to thrive. Tourism helped us survive because it forced us to remember things.”
Krista Langlois, a freelance writer based in southwest Colorado, writes about science, the environment, and social justice for High Country News, Outside, Adventure Journal, and other publications. Follow her on Twitter.
Feb 16, 2019 · With James Cromwell, Ian McAllister, Ryan Reynolds. Hidden from the outside world, the Great Bear Rain-forest is one of the wildest places left on earth. For the first time ever, experience this magical world in IMAX and giant screen theaters, and discover the land of the spirit bear.
- (115)
- 2019-02-16
- Documentary, Short
- 41
Parents need to know that Great Bear Rainforest: Land of the Spirit Bear is a 42-minute IMAX nature documentary that takes viewers inside the largest intact rainforest on the planet. Narrated by Ryan Reynolds, the educational film connects the dots on how an ecosystem works.
- Ian Mcallister
- Tara Mcnamara
- Macgillivray Freeman
Feb 22, 2016 · The inside story of how Great Bear Rainforest went from a ‘War In The Woods’ to an unprecedented environmental and human rights agreement. by Mike Gaworecki on 22 February 2016. There were ...
Documentary. Now Playing! Journey to a land of grizzlies, coastal wolves, sea otters and the all-white spirit bear – the rarest bear on earth – in the film Great Bear Rainforest. Hidden from the outside world, the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the wildest places left on earth.
