We bump into a Brazilian film crew on the estuary and they tell us they watched a white bear up Whalen Creek a week ago.

Despite it being old news, we decide to go look.

Rainforest but not old growth,
the logging road is clogged with alder and slippery with moss.
It still provides the easiest access to the spawning pool upstream.
Rare sun warms our backs.

Alder leaves paint yellow across the cobalt blue sky.
We shed jackets as we move along, but legs are trapped
sweating
under the ubiquitous rubber waders.

Finding perches on the slope above the stream,
we sit waiting for five hours,
watching just a few salmon congregate
by fallen logs damming a pool.

A black bear flits in/out of view. Another, maybe another.
Or it could be the same one thrice.
They all look alike when you see them for split seconds.

Unlike Canoona, the bears here are spooked by us.
Wayne whispers," They've always been wary here.
That's why I stopped coming seven years ago, but
the Brazilian film crew said
they watched a white one with her cub
for a long time. . . only last week,
so let's be patient, be still, be quiet."

I am still and quiet and oddly satisfied
after sitting for five hours.
I feel like a real wildlife photographer
learning the art of simply waiting for animals to come to me. . .

A chill creeps in as the sun wanes.
We rustle into jackets, pull on hats.
Still no bear.
Standing stiffly
we finally decide to head back down the trail
to the Zodiac waiting to motor us home.

Back on board the Ocean Light II
we wrestle with gear.
Tom raises anchor, the boat turns,
steaming for open water,
making haste for protected anchorage
before dark.

Half in and half out of my boot,
I hear Tom yell from the bridge:
"White bear, white bear, white bear on beach."
I think this is a cruel joke after waiting five hours . . .
But no - he's cut the engine.
Someone else has begun to yell.
"Oh my god, oh my god."
And there it is.
A big one - a really big one
ambling along the beach
right where we ourselves had emerged
from the forest not long before.

Its bearness clarifies my bones.

Without binoculars I see its head swing side to side
in rhythm with its lumbering gait.
With binoculars I can see its peach colored mantle,
orangey nose.
I'm awkward jumping up and down,
half in and half out of my boots,
but jump I must.
I can't stop myself.
I yell with joy
and then everyone is hugging
and everyone starts crying and laughing
and we're all jumping up and down
and crying and yelling.
So beside ourselves in our need to clasp each other tight
we forget the bear for moments
still ambling on the beach
oblivious to our jubilation on the boat.
Even a veteran of seeing bears
has glistening cheeks.
We can't seem to stop.
A white bear,
a white black bear.

I'm seeing with my own eyes,
creator's anomaly,
a white bear in a dark green world.

I am glad that my first sighting
of the enigmatic, miraculous
spirit bear is
just as it has been.

Any closer and our exultation
would have sent it scrambling.