Van Life in Wild Northern BC: Grizzlies, Spirit Bears, and Rainy Magic

Van life in northern British Columbia isn't always easy. It's wet, it's remote, and it's completely wild. But this stretch of our journey has been unforgettable. So cool. Big old grizzly. This spot. Oh my gosh. Van life doesn't always lead to perfect sunsets or sunny days, but sometimes, if you're lucky, it leads to something even better. I love you British Columbia. Come along as we explore northern British Columbia. If you're new here, I'm Emily, this is Brian, and our adventure pup Wes. We've been living on the road full-time in our converted sprinter van since July 2024. This is our adventure out there. Hey everyone, we're continuing our trip up towards Alaska. We are currently in beautiful British Columbia. We're standing on the tallest suspension bridge in British Columbia right now. We're enjoying all the beauty she's throwing at us. The mountains are starting to get bigger. There is rain in the forecast for about the next week, so why not make our way to the rainiest city in all of North America. Let's see what happens. So here we are. We're in Prince Rupert, the rainiest city in all of North America. On average, it receives about 100 inches of rain a year. When we got here, it was really coming down. Right now, it's not raining, but I would say when it's not raining, it is still raining somewhere in this area. We were going to stay in a campground here, but it's quite flooded. So I think we're going to go find some dispersed camping in a fjord. Let's go! I got you a prize, you weirdo. What did you get? Ketchup flavored chips. I know they're Canadian, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about these. You like ketchup. I do love ketchup, but I'll have to try these later. I got you some cheesies too. Okay. These are good. These. If you guys have never had these. 1,000 times better than Cheetos. Sorry, not sorry. So cool. Big old grizzly chewing on something over there. Seen some grass. He's a big boy, girl. Wow. After some contemplating, I think we are going to move on to another spot. Obviously, we know the further we get into Canada and even Alaska, like Brown Bear or just, they're there. They're everywhere. But seeing one literally 50 yards from camp, we're not really feeling it. We have Wes with us and he's going to have to go out every now and then. We just don't want him to have an encounter. We don't want to have an encounter. We're going to be cooking food. Some of these campsites aren't that clean. There's some trash left in the fire rings and stuff. So he's probably going to make his way over here. And I think we're just going to avoid that whole situation and we'll go play ignorant somewhere else and where we don't see one so close to camp. What do you think? I agree. I think just eliminating any possible chance, right? Yeah. Knowing he's so close and he's eating. He's hungry. He's a big boy. He's a big boy. No cubs, which that's good. But I just think it's going to be one of those nights where we're constantly on edge, right? Wondering how close he is. Is he outside of the van when we let Wes out? Well, we know he lives here. Yeah. This is his area. He's a big boy. He's got some, some battle damage on his left chunk. So I think we'll push on. Well, this is more like it. Definitely home for the night. Maybe two. And I think Wes is going to approve for sure. What do you think? Are we level? Oh, we'll be level. We're level. Seeing that grizzly bear in the wild was so freaking special. We've seen grizzlies before. You know, we went to Katmai last year and then we saw them also when we were in Haines, but to just roll up on a bear like that, just munching on the grass and didn't care at all that we were there. And he probably wouldn't have bothered us if we did stay there last night. As Brian mentioned, you know, the right thing to do is just for us to move on knowing that we were in his home. He had already occupied that campsite and we always weigh, you know, any risks, safety risks for us, for Wes, for the bear when we're looking at sites like that. So we'll have to go back there maybe a different day. But in the meantime, you know, we were trying to figure out where else to camp. I did some additional research and found this spot and we rolled up on this with that turquoise river right there. This is probably easily in my top 10 favorite campsites, if not five. We'll see over the next few days as we stay here. You know, it's kind of lightly raining right now. I think it's supposed to do that probably on and off, but this looks like a pretty amazing spot. I'm glad I call it home for a few days. British Columbia. Oh, I love you, British Columbia. It's been raining most of the day here today. We were hoping to do Dutch oven fire. Instead, we're going to cook inside tonight. And tonight we're having Canada's official pasta dish, KD, known in Lore 48 as Kraft Mac and Cheese. And then I got to put my own little twist on it, of course. Too much of a good thing? I think not. Bon Appetit. Sometimes there really is nothing better. It's been a pretty long, fun, exciting day between Prince Rupert and then running into our new bear friend to finding this awesome spot. Hopefully tomorrow we can just kind of relax a peaceful night here at camp. It rained lightly all night. It might do it all day. Hopefully not because we'd like to do some Dutch oven cooking. So we will see. First things first, coffee. Whoa. Okay, the people have spoke and I'm listening. I'm going to try different methods of making coffee now. Did some research with the AeroPress. Now I understand why some of you were saying I was doing it upside down. Makes total sense. So I'm going to try the pour over method. Then I'm going to try the pour over and then plunge method. And then I'm going to do a comparison and see which way works better for me. So before you all said I was doing it upside down, I really didn't understand what that meant. So I figured it out because I watched some stuff online. I was putting my grounds in that way, pouring in the water and then letting it brew. And it is a method, but I guess it's an espresso method. So I'm going to try the pour over method which is oh and I also forgot that I have these little filters. So I'm going to double filter mine to keep grounds from going in. I've got the reusable filter. This one and then that should keep the grounds out. So this is what you guys were saying I should be doing. Put the grounds in this way. Make a big mess because that's what I do. And today like I said I'm going to do the pour over method. I'm not going to use the plunger today. And I think I'm going to do this step twice. The coffee starts to drip right away right? So I'm afraid it's not going to be quite strong enough. Maybe I'm wrong. And then I'll put some hot water in to fill my cup when this is done. Decided to try this different way. A couple different ways. Maybe my coffee has just been garbage for the past year. I've just been dealing with it. Okay. Cheers. Okay that's really good. It's delicious. I think doing the pour over twice maybe made it a little strong for my taste. But it's good. It definitely has a different flavor than the way I was doing it before. Sometimes the way I was doing it before was like cowboy. It was hard coffee. This is really good but I do think I need to try it with just one pour over. And I think that might be a solid cup of coffee. Thank you for the suggestions. I thought we left the beach behind but the beach has followed us to Canada. And so has the sand. Always sand. And dog hair. Always. It's our life. Life in the van. This will definitely help me sleep tonight. I think last night was the first real buggy night with the little no-seams. Just a lot of sand has gotten into our bed. So be nice not sleeping on sandpaper and hopefully not getting eaten by bugs again. Welcome to the north. Today is a two cup of coffee kind of day. This time I'm going to do a single pour over. Last time I filled this up twice and let it brew. I'm just going to do it one time. The last cup was pretty strong. Let's see how this one turns out. Single pour over. That's okay. That's way better than the double pour. That's just a just the perfect amount of bitterness. That's a good cup of jitter juice. Tomorrow I'm going to do the same single pour but I will do the plunger tomorrow and that will be the end of my experiment. It's only like four but maybe we should get dinner going sooner than later because I think it might rain again. Yeah I think the skies are supposed to open up. Yeah and I mean we could cook dinner inside tonight but I love a dutch oven. Yeah it's been a while. Yeah and what are we having? One of our favorites. We are doing some Italian soup tonight. No green chilies. Sorry to disappoint. We have more stuff for you. Oh if I could get it. I always give you a hard time. We ate one more. Can you do one more? Heck yeah. We need utensil. Yeah. I dropped the bacon. The rain's coming. Did we wait too long? We've still got about a half an hour for this to cook. Time to check the taters. Burn my face off? Probably. Oh they're done. Done. Oh that broth. Oh I'm so excited for this dutch oven soup. It's one of our favorites and I can tell you what we wouldn't be doing this if we were camping next to that grizzly bear still. Definitely be an inside couple of days that's for sure. Not saying there's not a bear or grizzly around here. We just don't know they're here which maybe ignorance is bliss. But we also have like a perfect 360 view around us. We're not like deep in the woods. We can see you know pretty much in every single direction here. So at least you've got a little bit of a fighting chance if one were to come up on you because you'd see them coming from a pretty far far distance away. I think Popeye would approve. It's actually supposed to have kale in it but like we couldn't find any kale up here in the grocery store that wasn't like basically a family-sized bag so this will work. Does it need to go back on the fire? I mean at this point basically just needs to wilt. You hungry? Yes please. The rain subsided. This is gonna be great. Thank you. Look at that. Let's eat. Perfect rainy weather dinner. Pretty easy clean up tonight. The soup came out of the dutch oven without really sticking. To re-season it we use Crisco. We use that over a grapeseed oil. Grapeseed oil we found leaves a taste that we don't really want in our food. This really doesn't and it doesn't spoil either. We haven't had it ever spoil. So I just take a little of this put it in the cleanish pot and then I'll throw it over the fire let it get really hot pull it out do a quick wipe put a little more Crisco in there all good if there's anything that is left on the sides anything that did stick when this cooks off it usually comes right out all right just let this get really hot all right pulled it off wiping away the oil got really hot now I'll put just another very small coat of oil on here and that's it I'll let it cool down on its own and I'll put it back in its bag and back in the van easy peasy all right I think we did that just in time it's starting to rain it's really starting to come down now we're gonna get packed up and hopefully nothing goes in the van soaking wet I think it's gonna be a movie night tonight which is fine yeah we haven't watched a movie in a while yeah we've had some really long drive days well it doesn't get dark here till 10 30 now I know all right I'll get this buttoned up out here hey boys you want to come up one time I don't lie I don't lie it's movie night we're gonna try these ketchup chips mean snack night I didn't mean to get the veggie chips yeah they're veggie crisps but so we used to have when I was in Korea a long long time ago they had like ketchup flavored lays and ketchup flavored ruffles and I never tried them but it's a thing here in Canada apparently can you guys see this looks like a mini ruffle a little bit yeah veggie okay they're tangy that's pretty good they're not bad I think maybe we need to try like the actual like yeah I'm pretty sure like lays yeah lays potato chips oh ruffles yeah make some we should try these but question for all of our wonderful Canadian friends what's your favorite snack here in Canada we already covered what is the unofficial pasta dish craft dinner last night uh poutine poutine the cheesies we love the cheesies from the gas station yeah what's like another good gas station food that uh is popular up here in Canada road trip snacks let us know put a comment below and we'll look for them let's get a movie going all right that's pretty good yeah they're good I like them they're tangy Ryan forgot to turn the game cam on so he's out here in his budgie smugglers because tonight would be the night a bear would walk by looking at my bum good night good morning today I'm going to conclude my AeroPress experiments thank you everyone for your suggestions and for letting me know that the way I was doing before might have been a little unconventional today I'm going to do over with the plunger so I'm going to let it sit for about 30 seconds put the plunger in let it sit for another about two minutes and then plunge it in and then see how this goes all right it's been two minutes I'm going to plunge the goodness in there that's some pretty good jitter juice I think that method is probably the keeper it's got a little more bite than just pouring it over that's really good I can taste I can actually taste the coffee all right cheers guys man this spot is gonna be hard to leave this is such a beautiful location and I'm pretty sure that we'll probably be coming back here but it's raining and it's time for us to carry on and get closer to the Casio highway we still have a lot of work to do before we hit that really remote section of highway we're gonna head into the town of Terrace to run some errands and I think this drive out of here might be a little sloppy buddy oh that was a black bear right in the road three bears well three total what do you think Wes do you see that big black bear oh my gosh we just saw a blonde cub oh my gosh he had two legs wow wow you guys look at this blonde cub one back there how many cubs are there oh my gosh that was one of the coolest things we have ever experienced I got flashed by a logging truck and then noticed that there was a bear on the side of the road when we passed that bear we saw that there was a very young blonde bear which was really neat to see so we turned on our flashers because there was traffic going in both directions turned around um got up and close to him there were actually three cubs down there eating some kind of berry with mama like what a special moment that was I'll remember that forever absolutely man that was cool between the grizzly the black bear we just saw this morning and then that like amazing like the timing of leaving today yeah because now that look we're glad to see that they they got tired of us being there and they started to move into the forest off of the road we didn't want them to be that close to the road so we kind of hung around with our flashers and uh man that was so so cool love you British Columbia minus the rain first order of business Canadian tire and can you believe this is our first time in a Canadian tire I'm excited to see what it's all about ouch don't go in the outhole Brian ouch I'm gonna be in trouble in here they literally have everything for our composting toilet uh-oh uh-oh now we're in trouble this is when you know you're in Canada yes I've needed one of these for two nights now they don't stand a chance I'll try not to hit you in the face with it thanks well we went in for one thing came out with five things they're all needs stocked up on groceries Wes is ready I think we'll be good to hit the cassia tomorrow so excited this is so our fridge doesn't fly open when we go around turns got a little piece of velcro there it's actually been working pretty good we are in an RV camp for the night um we really don't know when the next time will be when we get showers or fresh water so we're gonna take advantage of it now they are the nicest people here and they said help yourself to firewood so you can't beat that and it stopped raining it stopped raining well why not let's have a fire good morning so I have to tell you guys since we saw that amazing bear family on the side of the road yesterday I've been doing a lot of research and because of the region that we were in in British Columbia and the subspecies of black bear that live there I actually think that we saw an extremely rare spirit bear they're one of the rarest bears in the entire world and to see one is like like I just can't get over it you guys almost getting emotional this morning thinking about it but let me know what you guys think we're no bear experts leave a comment let us know do you think we saw the very rare and or do you think we saw just a blonde black bear which is still extremely rare with only 0.05% of the black bear population being blonde either way just amazing and you know this video didn't start out as we had planned we really wanted to explore Prince Rupert we got rained out of Prince Rupert but then that led us to go see that incredible grizzly that we had that chance encounter with and we got to just hang out with and watch eat for a while and we couldn't stay there because we didn't want to share camp with the grizzly but then that led us to the amazing riverfront spot that we had and we enjoyed for a couple of days and then leaving there led us to that very rare chance encounter with that bear family on the side of the road so I think it just goes to show that even though things might not always start out as the way you plan they always happen for a reason and I gotta say I know we've got a long way to go but this so far has been the past couple of days such a freaking highlight for me yeah this has been absolutely incredible um and then we ended up at this really nice rv park we had some nice warm showers yeah the showers here thumbs up they were great and then unlimited firewood so we were able to relax by the fire last night which is also nice the weather let up we're topped off on water we're topped off on power we do need to head to the gas station and make sure we fuel up there fuel up get def topped off any last minute supplies you might need because we're going through a very remote section of British Columbia and gas stations are just few and far between so we hope you like this video if you did like subscribe and we'll see you on the next adventure out there bye