i went on a hike on the cheakamus trail with my family today...

and the highlight of my day was seeing that black bear. not the majestic mountains with snow tops but the wild black bear in its natural habitat.

at first it made my day, but then it made me really sad.

for those of you who doesn't know where cheakamus trail is...
it's a trail through ancient forest leading to the cheakamus lake in the garibaldi provincial park just slightly south of whistler village.

this is a picture of the lake i found online by Just_Peachy from flickr. this is what i wanted to see. but we were unlucky because it was sort of raining and there was.. a lot of mist.

there were signs of warning of black bears activity in the park so it made us very cautious of their existence since we didn't want to get mauled by them.
as we were walking back to the gate where we parked our car, suddenly my dad said "careful, there's a bear to the left..." i quickly scanned my surrounding without making direct eye contact with the bear(as it was described in the bear situation guidelines) and there she was, sitting on her butt, within 20 meters of us. she was a lot taller than me, even when she is sitting. and i sorta panicked because she was a black bear and that means we can't climb trees and we probably won't see anyone for 2km on either side. when we walked pass by her, it was scary because we have to keep the same pace without alarming her. but we walked on and she sat there. after we were able to gain about another 20 meters from her a motorcycle passed by, the first thing i could think of was how the bear felt towards the loud motorcycle engine. suddenly, she wasn't scary anymore(plus the fact that now i am away from her) and she was more cute and vulnerable than anything. and it made me think... who are we to add her home to some kind of urban sprawl. who are we to turn her berry fields into golf courses and her home into ski resorts...and with the olympics coming up, the expansion of highways and many other things... i can't imagine how many homes are going to be taken away from the bears, the birds and the other native species.

and just seeing the natural wonders of bc while driving on highway 99, its mountains, ancient forests and glacier water lakes. i can't help but wonder how long they are going to last. how long is it going to be before we pollute the beautiful waterways. how long is it going to be before we cut down all the tree for lumber. how long it's going to be before it will look exactly like every other north american city.