Canada Geese on Ice

Bear Flat Dispatch. March 26, 2026

Every year the Canada Geese will consistently start showing up here at Bear Flat around March 15th give or take a couple days.

That always worked out for them because even if the weather was nasty, they always had open water on the river.

That changed with the flooding of the reservoir as it is now all frozen over. However, I guess old habits are hard to kick because the geese are still showing up here at the same time as before. Last year, they crowded into a small patch of open water to the east, but it was pretty cold then and as it froze over, they eventually left.

This year there was no open water, so they just sat out there on the snow-covered ice for a couple days until they got fed up with that and left again.

Of course, there is open water up towards Hudson’s Hope and down below the Site C dam, so I suppose they do have options, but I am starting to think that geese are stubborn by nature.

Once the ice melted last year, the geese really moved into the lower end of our property next to the new reservoir for the spring and early summer.

One would think they had lived there for millennia with how indignant they would get every time we got anywhere close to them.

Sometimes I would have things to do down there, but they would sure give me heck about it. I threatened to put the odd one in a pot for supper, but Arlene made it clear I was not doing that.

After all these years, and I am reduced to feeling like a squatter on our own land. Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield with that whole “no respect” thing happening. I chalk this up as one more problem to blame on BC Hydro since they created the whole situation.

Maybe this year I will see if they can send over some of their “wildlife experts” to deal with our feathered friends, or perhaps I should say “fiends”?

-Ken Boon