Pat just spent a wet and wonderful 3 weeks on a shoot with wildlife filmmakers Jeff & Sue Turner (& their delightful sub-adult offspring, Chelsea and Logan), in the archipelago north of Bella Bella. The Turners invited him to shoot a 10 minute “making of” film to accompany their 50 min BBC Nature’s Great Events series documentary on the life cycles of the flora and fauna of the Pacific coast, entitled The Great Salmon Run.

Stationed out of a floating pleasure craft base camp, the team spent long days swatting pesky gnats, and rubbing shoulders with the grizzlies and black bears that feed on the spawning chum and pink salmon in this region.

Check out a couple film clips on the BBC World website.

Jeff and Sue graciously shared their many years of wildlife filming experience. They are the winners of the Telluride Mountainfilm 2007 Best of Festival award for the film Edge of Eden, which chronicles Charlie Russel’s work with orphaned grizzlies in Kamchatka, Russia.

Pat’s observation based on the experience he picked up from this shoot: “When it comes to filming wildlife, it’s much easier to anticipate the behavioural patterns of my climbing animal buddies – they respond readily to the clinking sound of beer bottles.”