New threats like this demand constant vigilance, but for McAllister, the biggest concern is still logging. And protecting the grizzly's right to wander undisturbed along uncut rain-forest valleys is what motivates him to return each year. To persuade the public to support his cause, he documents what happens once loggers take over. The green is exploding and the fragrance of it all brings big grins. Bear tracks are fresh in the mud right next to where I slept last night.
Deer walk by the boat only five feet away.
To that end, he made a special trip to the Sheemahant River, once the territory of a now-deceased hunting guide, Clayton Mack, whose book of colorful memoirs, Grizzlies and White Guys, talks of adventures guiding elite trophy hunters, including a former city deputy attorney of Hollywood, California, who shot at grizzlies with weapons confiscated from street criminals. Mack described seeing 50 or more grizzlies spread out along the river's edge on one weekend alone. All I found were a few pathetic black bears raiding a garbage dump. McAllister and other grizzly advocates contend the only way to protect B.C.'s coastal grizzlies from such ravages is to establish a series of large sanctuaries free from both logging and hunting. Taking a big step in that direction in 1994, the B.C. government created Canada's first grizzly bear sanctuary in the coastal Khutzeymateen Valley, a spectacular provincial park that provides a refuge for 30 to 50 grizzlies.