A year ago today, I received an email from my friend David duChemin asking “Photograph Grizzly Bears with me next September?“. I ummed and ahhed for a couple of days, worked up the courage to run it by my wife, and then responded “sign me up!”. A FaceTime call later and I was in.
More on Bear Camp in the next post, but I figured that flying halfway around the world for just four days with the bears wasn’t enough. So I started sketching out a plan to hire a 4×4 with a rooftop tent and spend a week exploring Vancouver Island.
That plan changed. Often. My first version had me driving from one end of the island to the other, all the way up to San Josef Bay. But the more I looked at the map, the more I realised how much time I’d spend behind the wheel instead of actually being there. Travelling solo also made me rethink how far off the beaten path I wanted to go – a decision that proved wise in hindsight, since on my last day before returning to the mainland, and not far from civilisation, I slipped on a steep stream bank near Triple Falls, and injured my knee. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to cancel Bear Camp.
I learned a lot in that week. Including that to make good photographs, you actually have to make photographs. It sounds obvious, but after a couple of years without really shooting, I’d forgotten what that rhythm felt like. The patience, the looking, and the small acts of noticing that lead to well composed, well exposed and meaningful photographs.
I spent my first couple of days in Tofino, but you won’t see any photos from there. I shot plenty – mostly while wandering the beaches – but nothing that I felt was worth sharing. It took a while to get my eye back in.
Even with a refined itinerary, I still spent too much time driving up and down Highway 19. And I rediscovered that rooftop-tent camping can be a bit limiting. Once you’re set up for the night, you’re pretty much committed, making further exploration, and spontaneous evening shoots, tricky.
What I have shared below is a small selection from some of my stops. They include Englishman River Falls Provincial Park, Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park, the Helen McKenzie – Battleship Lake Loop Trail in Strathcona Provincial Park, and Ida Lake.
Click to open and scroll through the full version of each.
