Woman’s Chance Encounter With White Grizzly Bear in Canadian Rockies Is Going Viral
When going on a trip in the mountains of North America, you always run the chance of encountering a bear. That's why you should always be safe and be prepared- and if you are, you may find something amazing up there.
Banff-based adventurer Yuko aka @kitazakibanff was driving on a local road through the Canadian Rockies when she stopped to get a picture of the scenery. She soon realized she wasn't alone, though, as standing by her was a white grizzly bear!
I'm not even playing it up for emphasis when I say that this video made me gasp out loud. The whole thing is just so surreal: the sudden reveal, how close the bear was, and its unusual color. Up till now, I had never seen a white grizzly bear before- and frankly, I didn't even know that they exist!
That's probably because white grizzly bears are extremely rare, to the point of being almost unheard of, according to the Toronto Star. In fact, the only reputable sources I could find involving white grizzly bears pointed only to this very bear, who has been a famed yet rarely-seen "resident" of Banff since 2020. This would indicate that Banff's blanched bear is the only known white grizzly currently living.
Many casual observers believe that the bear, who has been named Nakoda, owes its once-in-a-lifetime coat to albinism, something I had suspected as well. However, according to an article put out by The Guardian, experts believe Nakoda's unusual coloring is due to a recessive gene expressing itself! And no, there's no relation to Nakoda's northern neighbors, the polar bears.
Nakoda gets spotted a few times a year in Banff, Yoho, and other nearby areas in the Canadian Rockies. However, local wildlife experts and researchers discourage visitors from attempting to search for it, for fear of negative human interactions. It looks like Yuko just got incredibly lucky with her chance meeting with Nakoda the White Grizzly!
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