Strawberry

Of all the things I remember about Strawberry, the thing I loved most was how shy she seemed. She was such a big, beautiful bear, and there she was, hiding behind a single fern.

I went to the Great Bear Rainforest hoping to see a spirit bear. I’d thought about what it might feel like to see white fur against all that green. I hadn’t thought about the bear herself. I hadn’t pictured her slipping behind a fern so small I could still see nearly all of her.

When I look at this photograph now, I always see the fern first. I remember how tender I felt towards her in that moment, and how much I wanted to stay still and let her decide how much of herself to show us.

Strawberry is a spirit bear, a black bear with a rare inherited trait that gives her white fur. The Kitasoo Xai’xais tell of Raven turning some bears white as a reminder of a time when ice covered the land. Spirit Bear Lodge estimates there are only 50 to 150 spirit bears.

The people who’ve watched Strawberry over the years have seen her with three litters. All the cubs they’ve seen with her have had black coats. In 2019, the first year they saw her with cubs, she had two and lost one. In the years since, they’ve only ever seen her with one cub at a time.

They’ve also seen wolves chase her, then watched her turn and chase them off. She’s driven away big male black bears when they got too close to her cub. I love knowing this about her when I look at the photograph. The bear behind the fern is the same mother who will run straight at a wolf.