![]() ![]() Geneticists have since learned that the coloration results from a mutation in a gene involved in the production of melanin. ![]() Scientifically, the white ones, along with their closest black relatives, belong to a subspecies of black bear: the Kermode bear, Ursus americanus kermodei, named in 1905 for Francis Kermode, who helped zoologists find the bears and later became the director of the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. There are as few as 100, according to some estimates. They revere every living thing, but the Moksgm’ol is especially sacred. The Kitasoo have been living on these coastal islands and fjord-diced tongues of mainland for thousands of years. The white bear is known to the Kitasoo as the Moksgm’ol, the spirit, or ghost, bear. Within a few minutes, she bats a salmon into her mouth and ambles with it back into the forest. She slips gently down into a pool fed by water gushing over a ledge. Today, many of the more than 300 Kitasoo/Xai’xais living here rely on ecotourism.Īfter 20 minutes, Charles points to a luminous white bear, maybe 300 pounds, which has come out of the dark forest on the other side of the river, some 200 feet upstream. By the end of the 20th century, though, there weren’t enough eulachon to sustain a market. The main trade item along the coast was eulachon, an oily smelt whose flesh was a food staple and whose oil was used as a medicine and for illumination. The Kitasoo merged with the Xai’xais during the second half of the 1800s and founded the community of Klemtu, on Swindle Island, on the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska. “Organic matter,” whispers our guide, Philip Charles, a 26-year-old Brit who has a bachelor’s degree in animal conservation science and has been made an honorary Kitasoo for all the work he has done to help these First Nations people reassert sovereignty over their homeland, and to get ecotourism going. Big gobs of meringuelike foam drift down the final run of the river into the seething surf. Four of us have mounted serious lenses on tripods, and we are all waiting motionlessly, respectfully. Behind it is primeval forest, a solid wall of trees-western red cedar, Sitka spruce, alder, hemlock, Douglas fir.Ī crow let out two clarion caws as we came in, and now every animal within earshot knows of our arrival. ![]() We climb out and sit on boulders in the intertidal zone, in front of a meadow. We’re halfway up the coast of British Columbia, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, in one of the largest unspoiled temperate rainforests on earth. The trees in Xai Bau's Grove were inspired by the dragon blood tree.Very quietly we paddle to shore in a raft from the research vessel, which has stopped at the mouth of a small river cascading into the Pacific, one of more than a hundred salmon-bearing rivers in the 1,500-square-mile territory of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais people.A single stream with red water runs through the hilly woodland and the sky bears a yellow-orange hue. Grass covers the entirety of the grove and numerous rocks are scattered throughout the area. Xai Bau's Grove is located deep in the Spirit World in a canyon densely populated by trees. ![]() However, she found Iroh instead, who advised her to talk to Lord Zuko if she wished to know what guidance her predecessor, Aang, might have given her. In an attempt to stop Zaheer from destroying the Air Nation, Korra visited Xai Bau's Grove once again, hoping she would find Zaheer's spirit and be able to trap him there. As such, he revealed the existence of the Red Lotus and expressed his intentions to recreate the world in order to restore the natural order. He reappeared shortly after, having done away with Aiwei in the Fog of Lost Souls, and offered Korra the chance to freely ask questions. As the airbender grabbed the seer's soul, Korra, who had been spying on them from behind a nearby tree, revealed herself, though before she could do anything, Zaheer disappeared. Aiwei defended himself by pointing out that any possible evidence that could compromise the group had been destroyed, though Zaheer was not satisfied, deeming Aiwei to be a loose end himself. In 171 AG, Aiwei and Zaheer met at Xai Bau's Grove at sundown, where the latter demanded an explanation from the truth seer for the Red Lotus' failed attempt to kidnap Avatar Korra at Zaofu. ![]()
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