En route to a different location, a Canadian wildlife photographer pulled over to investigate tracks in fresh snow, leading him to a chance encounter with the area’s most famous grizzly bear and the photo series of a lifetime.
Jason Leo Bantle, 50, lives in Canmore, Alberta. A trained biologist specializing in large carnivores, he is the founder and photographer of All in the Wild photography and has galleries in Alberta, Ontario, and his home province of Saskatchewan.
On a Sunday at the end of November, Bantle was on his way into the wilderness when he saw animal tracks crossing the road between Banff National Park and Lake Louise. He told The Epoch Times he parked his vehicle, stepped out, and quickly recognized grizzly footprints.
“I would never follow a grizzly bear at this time of year,” Bantle said. “They’re going through something called hyperphagia, which means that their body is full of hormones telling them to eat as much as they can.”
Bantle cautiously followed the bear tracks to their origin and found a dugout only 100 meters away.
“He had looked for ground squirrels underneath logs,” Bantle said. “His meandering made me aware that he was definitely searching for food ... I got back in my vehicle and started driving back down the road, en route to where I planned to go. Probably within one kilometer, all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, I caught something.”
Digging under a log near the roadway was “The Boss” the most famous and formidable grizzly bear in Banff National Park. An adult male in his mid-twenties, The Boss is thought to be the largest in the park, weighing an estimated 660 pounds (300 kg).
Seeing him, Bantle was awe-struck.
“This is a bear that has a home range of 2,500 square kilometers,” he said. “They had him radio-collared a few years back, and in the springtime, it showed great movement. This bear is up and down valleys, looking for girlfriends ... he’s got great genetics, he’s a survivor, he’s strong, he’s legendary!”
Bantle said that The Boss has managed to exist in an ecosystem where there was a lot against him.
“Rumor has it that he has been hit by a train and survived,” he said. “He’s also known to be the father of more than 50 percent of the cubs in the valley from DNA analyses.”
Bantle certainly knew that he was looking at The Boss from the bear’s massive frame, winter bulk, and his missing right ear tip from an old ear tag. The photographer knew to keep his distance. Yet, using his longest telephoto lens, he was able to capture a series of incredible photos.
“I got the one image of him digging that was from the safety of my vehicle,” he said. “He looked up for a split second at my camera, and I maybe got six to 10 images. When he walked through the meadow and I got the other images and video, he didn’t know I was there, but then again he is a bear that is very focused on being a bear!”
Sharing his experience of seeing the gentle giant’s face through his lens, Bantle said: “It was exhilarating ... I was looking right into his eyes, a very old soul.”
As The Boss wandered back into the forest, and Bantle went for lunch, he had a change of heart and decided not to go to his planned destination.
Instead, he turned around, drove back, and stopped by the side of the road near the spot where The Boss had shown up earlier. About an hour later, the bear appeared again.
“I mean, is there anything else like that?” he told The Epoch Times. “That was a profound moment for me ... to see the power and the majesty of that bear.”
Bantle took up photography while working as a graduate student in Canada’s Central Arctic in the late nineties, wanting to “share the beauty of that space with other people.” His first camera equipment was borrowed from his sister, but, returning to the Arctic for three years of graduate research, he bought a used Nikon camera and shot on 35mm film for years.
Bantle went professional 18 years ago, buying new equipment and a new lens for better close-ups. He has also developed remote camera technologies and is experimenting with camera trapping. He uses Photoshop for post-processing, insisting, “but we don’t do anything that you can’t do in a darkroom.”
Crucial to Bantle’s practice is the combination of his education with his knowledge in the field. He knows never to put the shot before the animal and always to lie low at a safe distance, insisting, “You have to look and smell like the forest.”
Bantle was working with declining caribou populations in Arctic Canada before the pandemic.
With only 65 grizzly bears left in Banff National Park, Bantle believes local conservation efforts are paramount. Parks Canada has already begun by helping prevent rail strikes. They are building “escape routes” for bears foraging for grain spilled along the railway lines, Bantle said.
Bantle’s company, All in the Wild, donates a portion of all sales revenue to conservation. Bantle also believes images are a “universal language” and the medium through which photographers like himself can affect change.
