When the clock struck midnight on 31st Dec, I was standing on a hillside in south-west England with my old war-time buddy Ant and his wonderful wife Harriet. Around us some of their friends had gathered, sipping whisky out of hip flasks, or swigging champagne...
It's a problem that has been vexing bear biologists for decades. How on earth do you tell two grizzly bears apart? They almost all have that characteristic dish-shaped nose, a hump on the back of their neck that packs a mighty digging muscle, and long...
For my post-Covid body, it was quite an ascent. Two and a half thousand vertical feet, over stumps and logs, through brush and bush, and detouring around endless blowdown. On my back was a punishingly heavy pack stuffed with tent, sleeping bag, food, clothing and an assortment...
I have some very sad news to share. In the early hours of yesterday morning my dear, darling wife Kristin, with whom I built up Wild Bear Lodge and have run it for the last fifteen years, died from cancer. I was with her. She had...
It was a former guest who helped me join the dots. For a couple of years now I have been thinking about the therapeutic value of what we offer at the ranch: high alpine hikes, rainforest walks, encounters with bears and other wild...
We should probably have done it years ago. We had only been here a few months - which makes it nearly 14 years ago now - when an Austrian family arrived in our yard. The father leaped out of his car, disgorged two noisy youngsters from the...
It was the cows what nearly did me in. I stood there staring intently at the imprint of a large fat hoof in the dirt. Definitely too big for a deer. Not quite right for an elk. But what else could it be? It didn't look good...
There are days when the Bear Gods frown upon us. The bears are always one step ahead of us, their favourite feeding zones are disappointingly deserted, and the guests and guides return from a day out bear-spotting empty-handed and just a little glum. And then there are...
It was more than twenty years ago and I was standing near an impromptu checkpoint in northern Albania as the country erupted in chaos and anarchy around me. A few yards away was Ant, a fellow journalist and veteran war reporter I was working with...
I'd never even heard of a snow-blower before I moved to Canada. A strange-looking beast, it has a large hungry mouth with a plethora of curved metal scoops inside, and a small chute that dispenses the white stuff high into the air and at an angle. The...