Art helps save spirit bear

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Doria Moodie, "Spirit Cub," 2015

Doria Moodie, "Spirit Cub," 2015, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 18”

The Great Bear Rainforest on B.C.’s Pacific coast is getting a little creative support this summer with a show of paintings that will tour the Mountain Galleries in Whistler, Banff and Jasper.

The show was the idea of Whistler, B.C., artist Doria Moodie, and includes artists Maureen Enns, Charlie Easton, Karel Doruyter, Brent Lynch, Shannon Ford, Jim Vest and Randy Hayashi, among others.

Moodie, a former teacher who first visited the forest six years ago and has been back four more times, is showing her painting of a young spirit bear that she saw fishing in a river last year.

The white bear came running out on a log “almost as if she was late for her curtain call,” says Moodie. “She just radiated beauty and warmth.”

The B.C. government recently announced an agreement to protect most of the old-growth forest from industrial logging, but advocates say more needs to be done to protect the spirit bear, a subspecies of the black bear that carries a recessive white gene.

Proceeds from a silent auction in conjunction with the show will support habitat protection groups, including Pacific Wild, says gallery owner Wendy Wacko.

“Mountain Galleries is in a tremendous position to bring attention and support to this cause,”  she says.