We rose early today, grabbed a quick breakfast and were checked out of the Banff Inn by 8am! We set the sat-nav for Golden, BC and set off to the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort to visit the Grizzly Bear Refuge.

Along the route, we saw an abundance of various types of deer and managed to get video footage of most of them.

We made good time to Golden, and took the mountain road up to the resort. While parking, we saw yet another deer and we managed to get a photo of this one!

We purchased our tickets and learned that in order to get to the bear talk and enclosure, we had to take the ski chair up – Lewis really didn’t like this much at all!

We got to the top and joined the bear talk, given by a former british woman called Wendy who has lived in Golden for 6 years and is married to a Canadian.

We heard all about Boo the orphaned bear who is now 9 1/2 and he has his own 22 acre enclosure. He made an appearance, but it was made clear that he is not a pet or tame in any way and his habitat and food source where possible is like he would get in nature, as in he has 4 micro habitats, 2 of which are wooded and 2 are more open plain like where all sorts of grasses and berries grow.  The problem with this is that when you need to consume 40,000 calories a day, there just isn’t enough to ensure he’ll get through hibernation and so Boo’s food is supplemented with berries, nuts and sometimes a little meat.  None of this food is “given” to Boo and so he finds it in his enclosure and thinks he’s just got the find of the century!!!

We managed to get some photographs of him before hypothermia set in and were lucky enough to get a ride back down the mountain in a pick up truck with Wendy the Guide.  This was far more preferable than becoming ice cubes on the ski lift !!!!

We are staying tonight in Golden, back in the cabin in the mountains (Cedar Restaurant and Chalets) and tomorrow we are off for a half day on quad bikes (known as ATVs in Canada)  to carry our camera equipment  and to see some of the sights up in the back country !!!