Wilderness Calling

Spring in Europe is beautiful - but it's not a patch on having a wild grizzly bear on your front lawn

A grizzly bear in our yard in May 2021. Photo by Sage Raymond.

It's surely the best time of year to be in a European city. The birds are singing in the parks, the days are growing longer, and the temperatures, for the most part, are just perfect, neither too hot, nor too cold.

Here in the Hungarian capital Budapest, where I have been teaching university students for the last several months, after two years of streets emptied by Covid the tourists crowds are returning and the café terraces are full once again.

But, for me, spring in Europe always comes with a pang of wanting-to-be-somewhere-else.

Nice as it is to share a bottle of wine with a friend and watch the world go by I am painfully aware that back home the snow is finally melting, my little valley is exploding with life, and the bears are emerging from their dens.

Earlier in the week, Signe, a friend who lives in Nelson, a two-hour drive from the lodge, sent me a video of the first black bear she has seen this year.

And now this morning, Sage, my long-standing co-guide at the lodge, who is up near Jasper working on a science project capturing and monitoring ground squirrels, sent me a photo of her sandalled foot next to the track of a decent-sized grizzly bear.

It's not that I haven't been busy the last few weeks. After teaching a condensed semester in my chosen subjects - war reporting, political jihad and Russia-Ukraine - I headed off with Emma, my daughter, for a week in Kosovo, one of my old haunts.

In what ranks as one of my most intense working weeks ever we revisited several people I had met when their families were massacred back during the 1998-1999 war.

One of them, Besnik, was then a five-year old boy who had just lost his mother and 21 other relatives. Today he is 28 years old, married, and has two adorable small children.

As Besnik and I met again, Emma, who is a filmmaker and had brought a second cameraman and a sound person with her, captured the moment on tape, tears and all.

Later, by chance, I met a man called Fadil whom I had met 23 years before, just after his entire family were killed by a Serbian policeman. We had the most remarkable conversation that left me deeply moved by his resilience, generosity of spirit and dignity in the face of such loss.

(I have told the story of our meeting in my journalism blog Back to the Front. If you would like to read about Fadil and our meeting please click here. You can also read my thoughts on what is happening in Ukraine and sign up for upcoming stories about the film project I am working on with my daughter and my time in Chechnya with the Russian special forces.)

On returning to Budapest from Kosovo I had been planning a two-week trip to Ukraine. I have not been there since January, just before the war began, and was keen to feel it on my skin and gain fresh insights.

But the call of the wilderness is strong now, and I have decided to cancel the trip and booked a flight home instead. Ukraine will have to wait until July or later.

There are many reasons to return to BC now, not just to feel the beauty of spring. Wilderness life is always a bit of a battle against the elements and during this long and snowy winter some crucial equipment at the lodge has failed.

First the internet connection went down, I suspect because of snow coming off the roof and knocking out the satellite dish.

Whereas once I could log on through my smartphone and see the front garden in real time for more than a month now I have been blind.

Kim, our cook, has been keeping an eye on the place, but without that live feed from the lodge I have been feeling a little less than whole.

The generator, which provides back-up power when there is not enough solar power, also failed.

After three six-hour round trips from a town down by the US border, John, my generator mechanic, finally got it going. But not before it had burned through my entire renewable energy upgrade budget for the coming year.

On a more positive note I have been talking again to Invictus Games and we are hoping to run a new injured veterans programme this autumn.

In late September last year we took five wounded or sick former soldiers from Canada and the UK and spent a week in the bush sharing skills and learning from each other.

And the last - but far from least important - reason I am so keen to get back is to reunite with my German Shepherd Katya.

She has been looked after by close friends and I have received regular visual updates but I haven't seen her in person - so to speak - since last September.

By this time next week - luck and airlines permitting - Katya and I should both be home. It will be time to turn on the water, open the curtains and stock up the bird feeders.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a bear has beaten me to it.

At this time of year, more often than a not, there is a black bear or two, and sometimes a grizzly, calmly eating the grass in the front yard.

So, much as I love Europe in the spring, it's time to head back to the wilderness. We will be opening for guests in September this year. But I will update you, of course, long before then.

LINKS

Article in The Guardian. The story of our wounded veterans programme.

My journalism newsletter: Back to the Front. Both paid and free versions available.

Fadil’s story. A remarkable tale from Kosovo of loss, resilience and dignity.

A long-awaited reunion. After 22 years I finally meet up again with a little Kosovo Albanian boy who survived the massacre of almost his entire family.