"Did you ever hear two grizzlies fighting," the elderly Tsimshian woman asked me. I shook my head, no. She waited for just a moment, and then continued, "the earth moves."

We were sitting in a coffee shop in the city of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and I was telling the story of my visit to the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary a few days earlier. The Tsimshian woman was sitting nearby and entered the conversation by saying that when she was a small child her family used to camp on the banks of the Khutzeymateen Inlet.

The Khutzeymateen is accessible only by water and the best way to get there is board one of the expedition boats that dock in Prince Rupert. The journey is about two hours; the speedy cruisers leave Prince Rupert harbor, pass through a series of narrow channels, float past the First Nation village of Metlakatla, and then enter the Hecate Strait. This is the famed Inside Passage running from Seattle to Anchorage and, indeed, as the boat heads north you can see ahead the snowcapped mountains of Alaska. The mainland rises to the east, islands to the west. As the boat courses into the Dixon Entrance toward the Portland Inlet, it cuts sharply eastward, entering a fjord, the Khutzeymateen Inlet.

While the murky currents dive deep below, the green-clad mountains rise steeply from water's edge. The timberline runs a straight line — the highest reaches of the daily tide — then thick vegetation blossoms everywhere, capped by hemlocks, pines and cedars. The forest adorns the mountains and cliffs until the high ridges and snows push into the terrain from above.

Little flatland exists along the Khutzeymateen, but what there is becomes the springtime playgrounds of the grizzly. When I visited at the beginning of June, the bears were only about a month out their winter dens and scrapping for their first seasonal meals, the sedge grass that covered the beachheads. This is good feed for the hungry giants as sedge boasts a protein factor of 25 percent.

A male grizzly can weight up to 1,200 pounds and standing on hind legs can stretch to 7 feet. So they have a long season of eating ahead. By mid-summer, the bears will begin migrating deeper into the forest, along the banks of rivers and streams, searching for their favorite delicacy, salmon.

The first grizzly spotted by our crew was a female munching her way across a rare, wide stretch of flatland. The tide was low, so our boat couldn't get very close and we had to do what we could to watch by way of binoculars. (The boat supplies binoculars to those who forget to bring their own.)

In the Khutzeymateen, visitors are not allowed to disembark from the boats. For one thing this would be dangerous, as a grizzly can out run any human — even the current world record holder in the 100-meter dash. More importantly, this a grizzly bear sanctuary and the land belongs to them — about 50 grizzlies plus a great number of black bears make their dens in these thick woods.

There were a few other sightings of grizzlies, including one near-black in color and lollygagging in the sedge like a hippie on acid. However, it, like the other grizzlies, quickly melted into the forest as our boat intruded into its world.

Grizzlies, it appeared, were much shyer than I expected. They certainly weren't living up to their reputation as bellicose man-eaters. Each one we spotted seemed more happily solitary than the one before. But, I suppose, if another grizzly wandered into their territory, a great deal of thundering, stomping and growling would be heard, just like the old Tsimshian women intimated.

There was one exception, and it would make the highlight reel of our group's memory bank. This bear, relatively scrawny from a long winter's sleep, dedicated itself to one thing — eating — and it didn't care about anything else. That included humans.

Our guide spotted him on a narrow beach. His immense head was low to the ground as he gobbled up sedge by the yard. The boat eased close to the shore so that we were only about 20 yards away from the creature. The grizzly didn't deign to look at us; wouldn't even acknowledge that we were in his presence.

This was an amazing sighting, because we were so close for almost 30 minutes. Although, as noted, a bit thin because it was still early in the season, this grizzly boasted very large paws and a massive scalp. His claws looked longer than my largest finger. He was a virtual sedge-processing machine, masticating and defecating his way across the beach. Not once did he turn his head in our direction. He just kept moving forward in a hunched position, across felled trees, over boulders and through thick bush.

As we watched a smaller water vehicle, a little larger than a Zodiac, drifted to shore to watch the animal. I thought the boat was getting a little too close. At one point, it might have been about 10 yards away and the grizzly could have been on that vehicle in a flash, but it didn't bother to react. It just continued to eat his way about 50 yards along the water's edge before disappearing into the forest.

The Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary is just one of many water journeys that can be made out of Prince Rupert, a city very isolated on the Pacific Coast. The nearest town of any size is about 400 miles to the east. Prince Rupert evolved, not on the mainland, but on Kaien Island, surrounded by myriad other islands. A road didn't connect Prince Rupert to the rest of Canada until World War II.

Actually, to see wildlife one doesn't really have to wander out of Prince Rupert. While I was there a small herd of deer wandered through the streets halting traffic and every day a hearty band of eagles crisscrossed the sky above.

IF YOU GO

Tour companies: To visit the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, I traveled with Prince Rupert Adventure Tours (www.westcoastlaunch.com), and for travel around the local islands I went with Seashore Charters (www.seashorecharters.com

Accommodations: Andrees B&B (andreesbb@citytel.net). Hotel (www.cresthotel.bc.ca).

Steve Bergsman is a freelance travel writer. To find out more about Steve Bergsman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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