Three and a half bears

While we were on trip to the mountians with Elisabeth and Paul, we saw a bear for the first time since arriving in Canada three years ago. Then we saw another bear. Then we saw a third.

The first bear was a cinamon bear with a cub and we saw them while we were out hiking through woodland fairly close to Jasper. As we were walking, a young German couple over took us and disappeared on ahead. However, we then rounded a bend and they were walking rather hurredly back towards us. They told us they'd come upon a bear and cub which had fortunately wandered off and could they stick with us as there was safety in numbers (and we didn't look like we could run as fast as they could).

So we walked together making lots of noise and fortunately just saw the bears a couple of times from a safe distance, and not close enough to take a photo.

The second and thirds bears were black bears and we saw those from the safety of the car as we were driving along the Icefield Parkway. In both cases, they were just grazing by the side of the road, completely oblivious to the hoards of tourists who had stopped to take photos.