We are here in Terrace for two nights (we are a bit ahead of schedule to catch our ferry on the 1st), so today we took a little road trip north of town to the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park. The park is located on the site of Canada’s most recent volcanic eruption. A small volcano erupted in the 1750’s, causing enormous amounts of damage to the forest and completely destroying two native villages – more than 2,000 people were killed in the disaster.
What’s left now is an eerie landscape of lumpy lava rock (called a’a lava). Up to forty feet thick in some places, the lava beds cover an area almost 70 square miles. It looks like an alien planet, especially since all the rock is coated in gray-green lichen and moss – the first signs that the forest will one day reclaim all the land that was lost.
We drove to the park’s visitor center, a traditional Nisga’a longhouse, but unfortunately it is closed weekdays until July 1st. Too bad, it looked kind of cool.
There are other sights to see in the park, though – there are two waterfalls and a lake that was formed when the lava dammed up a river. Thanks to all the recent rain, all the water levels are extremely high which made it pretty exciting to step out to the viewing platform at Vetter Falls.
We enjoyed the daytrip, but we had ulterior motives for heading to this part of the area: our RV campground host had mentioned that there was a Kermodei bear, or Spirit Bear, living up this way. The Kermodei bears are black bears with white coats. They aren’t albinos, it’s just a recessive gene mutation (both parents need to pass on the gene to make a white bear). We kept our eyes peeled and drove slowly the entire way (and probably pissed off all the drivers who had to pass us), but we didn’t see any Spirit Bears. They’re fairly rare – less than 10% of the bear population in this area are Kermodei bears. We did see four other regular black bears along the way, but somehow they aren’t quite as exciting now that I am on the hunt for a photo of the elusive Spirit Bear. Here’s one I found on the internet:
Photo courtesy of www.kermode-terrace-bc.com
And here’s a Spirit Bear I saw standing on a street corner in Terrace (they are the town mascot):
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