Grizzly bears are expected to navigate around all sorts of human obstacles: train tracks, roads, fences, even towns.

When they don’t, they’re considered a nuisance — to some, at least.

But for others, like filmmaker Leanne Allison, the inability to see the world from the bear’s perspective is simply a failure of the human imagination.

Allison, who made a documentary film about another Banff grizzly bear that was killed by a train, finds value in the exercise of getting in to a bear’s mindset.

“It’s nice to spend a bit of time imagining the world from an animal’s perspective because animals can’t tell their own stories,” she says.

Actively trying to understand how grizzlies move from one place to another can help minimize conflict between people and bears.

But thinking about grizzlies and how grizzlies exist upon the landscape extends well beyond the purview of filmmakers and ecologists, according to Bill Snow, consultation manager with the Stoney Nakoda Nation.

To him, grizzly bears are land guardians.

“We see them as caretakers of certain areas,” Snow says. “Traditionally their role [is] as guarding over certain areas and looking after the medicines in that area. And there’s a large spiritual and cultural component that grizzly bears have on landscapes that we understand as traditional knowledge.”

Snow said his nation’s traditional beliefs lead members of the Stoney Nakoda to operate with deep respect around grizzlies.  

“We know that there’s areas out there where they like to feed. That’s why we stay away from them … We don’t want to go charging into an area just because we want to be there and then, you know, kick everybody else out.”

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Featured in this episode:

Leanne Allison, documentary filmmaker – her project “Living With Wildlife” looks at human-bear co-existence in the Bow Valley

Jodi Hilty, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative president and chief scientist

Bill Snow, consultation manager with the Stoney Nakoda Nation, who contributed to a cultural assessment of grizzly bears

 

Undercurrent soundtrack sponsored in part by Approach Media.