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Along the rain-battered coast of British Columbia, spirit bears roam.
There are thought to be no more than 100 of these majestic creatures, also called the Kermode bear, a subspecies of black bears with ghostly white coats. They wander the Great Bear Rainforest, a 250-mile tract of western Canada larger than Sri Lanka, feasting on salmon from the chilly North Pacific and living out of the public eye.
The spirit bear and its neighbors, a collection of First Nations communities including the Kitasoo Xai’xais, Gitga’at, Heiltsuk, Metlakatla, Nuxalk and Wuikinuxv, are culturally and practically entwined. There’s evidence of human habitation of the Great Bear Rainforest stretching back 11,000 years. The white bear features in First Nations’ totem poles, oral tales and dances. They rely on the same land and food sources for survival.
“It’s this mysterious being that lives amongst them,” said photographer Jack Plant, and yet, “the majority (of the Kitasoo Xai’xais) have not seen one.”
Plant has spent the last decade living spring to fall with the Kitasoo Xai’xais in Klemtu, a small community on Swindle Island, one of dozens along the coastal fjords. Unlike many of the Kitasoo Xai’xais, the Briton has seen more than his share of spirit bears, having ventured deep into the temperate rainforest as a guide and photographer. Images from his adventures have been compiled into new book “Spirit of the Great Bear,” containing 90 photographs from the forest.
The portfolio shows spirit bears poking out of verdant forest, sopping wet in rivers and feasting on salmon, maws reddened by blood. They appear solitary, regal, conspicuous — yet at home. Also in the forest are grizzly bears and wolves, and in the ocean, orcas and humpback whales. A book was “never the goal,” admitted Plant, who said he selected five-10 photos from each year he spent in the forest. “A lot of photographers get that once-in-a-lifetime trip … I had the luxury of experimenting,” he said. “So there was really no pressure from anyone but myself.”
Plant first visited the Great Bear Rainforest in 2014 in his early 20s, inspired by a National Geographic cover featuring a spirit bear. “I became obsessed, it’s all I could talk about for years,” he said. The 2010 image was taken by legendary Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen, who would later become Plant’s mentor, and in a full circle moment, provides the foreword to his book.
On that initial trip, Plant saw his first spirit bear on his birthday, “an insane moment,” but it was not his only takeaway: “I didn’t realize I’d connect with the people there so much. Everything just fell into place. I was like, ‘I need to figure out a way I can be here a lot.’”
He turned to guiding, and fell under the wing of Douglas Neasloss, the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation’s current director of stewardship, and the late hereditary chief Haay-maas Ernest V. (Charlie) Mason. Plant said Mason “had to wear glasses an inch thick, but he would spot a spirit bear before anyone else.”
“These people are different. Their knowledge is not backed by science and research, it’s backed by generational knowledge and wisdom. That I just don’t think you can beat,” he added.
Protecting the land of the spirit bear
During his stays, Plant witnessed a remarkable set of conservation wins, pushed by the Kitasoo Xai’xais. “For such a tiny community, they pack a hell of a punch,” he said.
In 2000, the Kitasoo Xai’xais outlined a management plan to protect natural resources, and in 2012 were part of a group of First Nations that implemented a ban on trophy hunting of bears in the rainforest. It was so successful, they convinced the government of British Columbia to introduce a province-wide ban on the hunting of grizzly bears in 2017, and the government backed it up by banning the hunting of black bears in the province in 2022. The same year, the Kitasoo Xai’xais also introduced a marine protected area in Kitasoo Bay to preserve herring stocks.
Plant described the hunting ban as a “win for the side that said bears are worth more alive than they are dead: tourism is a bigger industry than hunting, so let’s keep them alive.”
Spirit bears are the product of a recessive gene from both black bear parents, and despite common misconception, are not albino.
“It’s a really hard animal to study,” said Plant, due to its scarcity and the large area it occupies. There is a lack of good data confirming how many spirit bears exist, with estimates ranging from 100-500. The Spirit Bear Research Foundation estimates no more than 100 live in the Great Bear Rainforest, though Plant believes there’s “way less,” and maybe 50 at most.
Despite improvements to its protection, the photographer said spirit bears are becoming harder to spot. “It’s very difficult to say whether they’re moving into areas that are harder for us to get to, or if their population is depleting,” he added.
If a grizzly bear moves into an area, black bears typically move elsewhere, the photographer gives as one possibility. But if the spirit bear population is shrinking — as Plant feels it is — there could be multiple reasons.
Of the challenges spirit bears face, food is the largest. “There are rivers I’ve seen have abundance of salmon in, and today have barely any,” he said.
In one of his book’s most arresting photographs, a spirit bear and a black bear fight over a dead salmon during a 2018 drought that prevented fish from migrating upstream — a rare event in the rain-sodden part of the world.
Climate change, along with overfishing, put the biome on edge. For all the battles the First Nations of the rainforest have won, “we’re still losing the conservation war,” said Plant.
This August, Douglass Neasloss will receive a hereditary chief name at a potlatch — a gift-giving ceremony — in honor of the late Kitasoo Xai’Xais hereditary chief Mason, who died last year.
Neasloss, a former chief councilor for the Nation, disagreed with the perception spirit bear numbers are declining, saying “the population has always been pretty low.”
He is also part of the Coastal Guardian Watchmen, comprising members from seven First Nations who patrol coastal waters around the fjords. They deter illegal fishing and poaching, but also conduct wildlife surveys, monitor fisheries, provide scientific research support and act as environmental emergency response. The group was established in 2005 and today rangers have British Columbia Parks authority, though they are not Parks employees.
“In the ’90s before Watchman, we had a lot of illegal activities. Today we have none,” Neasloss said.
Protecting the coast, the forest and its spirit bears is also protecting the Kitasoo Xai’Xais’ future. The Nation has invested heavily in ecotourism infrastructure, including guide training and the Spirit Bear Lodge, where visiting guests stay.
Plant does not see the book as closing a chapter on his life. He’ll return to Klemtu this summer for Mason’s potlatch, and though he’s no longer guiding much, he’ll reenter the wild in search of spirit bears and hopefully a few familiar faces.
“There’s a particular spirit bear that I watched grow up from an eight-month-old cub to an eight-year-old dominant male,” he said.
“You’re returning to the forest and waiting for that bear to show up. Your fingers are crossed that he’s okay and he survived the winter. Then he shows up and it’s almost like you want to cry … he’s a little bit bigger, he looks healthy, and he looks you in the eye … it’s hard not to believe that you have some kind of connection.”
