Canoe-accessed facilities on Maligne Lake are open again after a camper’s close encounter with a grizzly bear family precipitated two campground evacuations and subsequent closures.

Last Friday, June 7, a camper at Coronet Creek campsite, a backcountry tent site on the south end of Jasper National Park’s 23 km-long Maligne Lake, encountered a pair of young grizzly bears. The run-in was followed shortly thereafter by an encounter with the yearlings’ mother. 

The sow grizzly came in contact with the camper’s tent, according to Parks Canada wildlife officials who received the initial report via satellite messenger device. 

“We understood the tent had been impacted, and that the camper had been pushed out of the campground,” Jasper National Park human-wildlife coexistence specialist James McCormick said of the initial report. 

The urgency of the situation was elevated by the fact that the bears were displaying indifferent, habituated behaviour towards the camper, according to McCormick. In response, both Coronet Creek and Fishermans’ Bay campgrounds were evacuated and closed by JNP staff on June 7. 

“We don’t like having to inconvenience people,” McCormick said. “But because it’s a grizzly bear and cubs, we’d be hard-pressed to say camping is the priority.”

Both campgrounds were closed to give the wildlife team a wide berth to assess the bears’ behaviour, and to ensure the safety of the camping public, McCormick said.

Coronet Creek and Fishermans’ Bay campgrounds each contain eight tent pads. After returning to his boat, the Coronet Creek camper was intercepting fellow backcountry users on the lake and telling them about the grizzlies. 

“The reporting party did everything well. He had his food stored, had bear spray, he was giving the bears space and reported [the incident],” McCormick said. 

To help evacuate Fisherman’s Bay campground, on the evening of June 7 resource conservation staff used a Parks Canada boat to ferry the campers 13 kms back to the north end of the lake.

Campers set up their tents and spent what remained of the night at the Maligne Lake Warden Station. Most of the campers’ canoes were shuttled by the Parks boat between Friday night and Saturday morning, McCormick said. One party with a freighter canoe and an electric motor boated back on their own, McCormick said.

The grizzly bears are well-known to Jasper wildlife officials. They are the same family which last summer was relocated 70 kms south of the Jasper townsite after coming too close for comfort with picnickers at a popular day-use area in late July.

In that incident, the bears were lured to a picnic table by food that had been laid out by visitors at Lake Annette. The animals’ bold behaviour promoted wildlife experts to trap the bears and move them away from the bustle of the townsite.

“These bears are very comfortable around roadways and people,” McCormick said at the time. 

When the bears were captured, the mother grizzly was fit with a GPS collar. Jasper’s wildlife team was able to track the bears’ progress throughout the late summer and fall.

Before they showed up at Coronet Creek on June 7, they were last seen north of the Columbia Icefields Area in the late summer of last year. In the fall of 2023, GPS data showed they moved between Replica Pass and Mount Brazeau, toward Maligne Lake. The data showed the grizzlies denned for the winter in the Sampson Peak area. 

In mid-May, the bears emerged from their den, according to McCormick. After their relatively late emergence, GPS collar data showed the grizzlies made their way to the Warren Creek area, at the south end of Maligne Lake. 

“Warren Creek is quite common for bears to be,” McCormick said. “There was no reason for concern.”

That was until the Coronet Creek run-in. When the camper encountered the adult female walking in the direction of his tent, he retrieved his bear spray and backed off. When he saw the bear make contact with his tent he yelled, prompting the bear to move away from the tent, but the grizzly then followed the camper to the lake’s shoreline. The camper got in his boat and alerted authorities.

The bears’ behaviours prompted Parks officials to set up their own tent and camera, to test, over the subsequent days, whether or not the camping gear (without food) would be of interest to the animals.

“If they were interested in that it would be a red flag,” McCormick said. 

As of Friday, June 14, no red flags were detected and the bears were seen foraging for food on an avalanche slide path near the south end of Maligne Lake—encouraging behaviour that shows these bears can look after themselves in the wild, McCormick indicated. Both campgrounds were opened to the public again. Parks Canada has since erected signage communicating to Maligne Lake users about the bear activity, and issued a precaution to campers to stay in groups.

“If you see bears in camp, we’re asking people to move back to their boats,” McCormick said.

Campers who had reservations at the closed campgrounds between June 7 and 13 were given a full refund, according to Parks Canada.

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com