| 1 | The undisputed king |
Just west of Calgary in Canada is the Bow Valley, a wildlife hub on the easternmost edge of the Canadian Rockies, with the Bow River flowing through its centre. The ski resort of Banff is located here. So are 52 bears, and since his birth in 2000, one bear has stood out as the most dominant, the most massive. His official name is bear 122, but since 2013, he has only been known as The Boss.
This monster grizzly weighs an estimated 700-750 pounds, which is huge for an inland grizzly, which tend to be smaller compared to ones by the coast where fish is more abundant. He’s one of the hardest and meanest bears in Canada, regularly picking fights with fellow Banff bears like Split Lip. In 2016 and many other years, he was the first bear in the Bow Valley to emerge from hibernation. This dominance extends to the ladies, with whom he has fathered at least 5 children.
Boss the bear is known by almost every resident of the Bow Valley community. He’s such a local celebrity that Banff merchandise stores sell products emblazoned with his image. Cotton bags or T-shirts are available, showing the boss standing in front of a train track roaring, accompanied by the words “Beware The Boss”. You can also buy stickers of Boss The Bear to place anywhere your heart desires, perhaps on your ceiling to jolt you awake on a sleepy morning.
| 2 | Eats black bears |
Sundance Canyon, 2016. It’s a 3 hour long, popular tourist trail, through lush trees and forests just outside of Banff. It’s a popular grizzly spot due to its hundreds of bushes teeming with buffalo berries, and on August 12, a group of hikers got a shock when they stumbled across a massive grizzly tucking into a carcass. The area was closed for 10 days, and the bear was identified as The Boss, or bear 122. But more disturbingly, the carcass was identified as a black bear.
It was estimated that The Boss was 5 times heavier than his black bear prey. The bear would have put up a good fight, but unless he dashed up a tree with his superior wood-holding claws, he would have succumbed to The Boss’ higher weight and brutally strong forepaws powered by his special muscular hump (which black bears lack). All that remained of the carcass was the skull, hide, the four paws, and some bones.
It’s not true cannibalism, since they’re a different species, but it feels like its 50% of the way there. Nevertheless, Banff bear specialist Stephen Michel said that he knew of 5 other other cases: “It may not be as rare as we think it is”. The signs suggested that the black bear was peacefully foraging on the trail before the attack.
| 3 | The Boss goes crazy |
But that wasn’t all. 2013 became quite the summer of mayhem for The Boss. Days later, on August 29th, the Marble Canyon in neighbouring Kootenay park was closed after a massive grizzly was seen feeding on an elk carcass 30 metres from the trail. People insisted that it was bear 122 and this was later confirmed.
The nearby Kaufmann lake was also closed and 12 hikers were evacuated by helicopter as a precaution. With an abundance of paw prints nearby, it was speculated that The Boss had chased a grey wolf pack away from their kill.
By November 13th 2013, 122 was facing accusations of being a “serial killer”. A few hundred meters from the Banff township, an elk wandered out onto the thin ice of the Bow River. With a loud CRACK, the elk plunged through, and The Boss seized his chance. At first, he tested the ice tentatively, before dragging the elk carcass to the shoreline, and spending a whole week till the 20th feeding on it, while the terrified residents watched on. He covered the carcass with spruce tree branches and even slept on it, ultimately devouring the whole elk, leaving only the hide. The Boss’ national profile was now going supernova.
| 4 | Attempts at tracking The Boss |
The Boss was first radio-collared in April 2012. Coincidentally, he broke into the Castle Mountain landfill near Banff just a few days later. The compost was full of corn on the cob and steak bones which hadn’t decomposed properly, and the newly awakened bear 122 spent 72 hours feasting to his heart’s content from April 21-24. This was The Boss’ first taste of national prominence in the newspapers. After he fled, the scientists adjusted the data transmission rate on his collar to once after 20 minutes to save batteries, but unfortunately for them, Bear 122 had the intelligence to shake the collar off.
They got the tracker back on his neck on May 29th 2012, before The Boss had the final victory when the radio stopped transmitting early in April 2013. Since then, information on No. 122 has come from sightings by hikers or biologists.
While he was collared, The Boss’ territorial range covered 2500 square miles, spanning three national parks in Canada: Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay. He entered his den on December 3rd 2012, and true to form, he was first to leave, breaking free into the sunlight on March 27th. He was also first to be spotted, wandering around near the Trans-Canada highway on March 31st. Only a bear as dominant as 122 could spend less than 4 months in a den, hogging the food supply to pile on fat reserves – some pregnant females can hibernate for 7 months in the frigid north of Alaska.
The authorities announced that The Boss would be recollared, but they never succeeded: “We tried… he was giving us such good data”.
| 5 | Uses train tracks for transport |
According to GPS tracking, a good chunk of The Boss’ travel was performed using the local train tracks, which act like a ready made highway for animals across Canada. This is no joke given that 14 grizzly bears have been killed by trains in Banff since 2000; it’s the leading cause of grizzly bear death in the Bow Valley region (where Banff is located). From 2012 to 2017, the Parks Canada-Canadian Pacific Railway led a $1 million study on ways to reduce grizzly and black bear mortality on the tracks. They even used webcams to zoom in on bears and check their reactions to oncoming trains.
But The Boss is immune from all this. Local human-bear conflict expert Steve Michel has stated that The Boss was hit by a train himself in 2010 near Vermilion Lakes, but lived to tell (or grunt) the tale. Since then, he has become more skilful in timing his railway wanderings.
According to Michel, “I think he’s actually been lucky in that he has been able to survive while utilizing these transportation corridors for so long“. Others say it’s skill, that the Boss consistently walks off the tracks in a nonchalant manner when he hears the roar of a train, compared to other bears who look surprised.
| 6 | The railways belong to him |
Over 5 years of the million dollar study, 31 grizzlies were tracked, but 4 used the train tracks far more heavily than others. These were The Boss (no. 122), plus 149, 142 and 128, who were all skinny teenage bears (maybe their brains hadn’t matured yet). 21 bears near the tracks didn’t use them at all, while 15 used them only occasionally. Meanwhile, The Boss spent 10% of his time on the railways. The carcasses of struck deer and elk tend to attract grizzlies, and particularly the Boss, whose yearly routine is apparently to head to the tracks right away after awakening from hibernation in April. The clearing of the railway also allows more light to shine through and feed the bears’ vegetarian staples like horsetail.
The Boss even defends the railway in a territorial manner as his food resource. He normally returns to the tracks in late fall when food is getting scarce. Grain is another tasty treat, as the million dollar study found that 110 tonnes are spilling from the tracks each year, enough to feed 50 bears for 1 year – no wonder The Boss is muscling in on the action. Autopsies of dead bears near the tracks have repeatedly found grain in their bellies.
There’s one unresolved question – is The Boss secretly doing it out of the goodness of his heart? Since 2012, not a single grizzly has been killed on the Bow Valley railways. It’s believed that the massive, dominant Boss is scaring the others away.
| 7 | The grain spillage incident |
One railway incident happened on Oct 23rd 2018, when The Boss was spotted feeding on a pile of grain which had spilled from a passing freight train. Conservation officer arrived and scared The Boss away with bear bangers and loud yells, but he was visibly reluctant to leave. The crew proceeded to vacuum up the grain pile.
Fast forward to March 1st 2019, and the whole of Banff held their breath when an entire grain train derailed, spilling 10 carriages worth of wheat and canola, and knocking several trees down onto the frozen Bow River. The clean up crew were so worried about the Boss turning up and causing havoc that they dumped some elk carcasses slightly to the West, to act as a distraction. Remember that this was Bear 122’s hibernation period – it just shows the respect and fear that he inspires.
On March 19th, the first grizzly of the year was spotted. Can you guess who it was? It was some bear called Winnie… no wait, it was The Boss. Yet again, this dominant bear was the earliest out. By now, the authorities had installed an electric fence around the derailed train, and were frantically vacuuming the earth to scoop up any last grains. After March, there were no more updates, either because nothing happened, or because the crew didn’t make it back.
| 8 | His happy bear family |
The Boss is the father of at least 5 children, and possibly more. One bear he had a relationship with was No. 64, a famous matriarch in Bow Valley who was first radio collared in 1999. For years, Banff citizens followed 64 with amusement as she appeared from nowhere to feed on huckleberries and force forests paths to be closed down. She had three litters during her life, and the 2011 batch was fathered by The Boss, spawning the male 144, female 112, and one unnumbered female, who still roam the park today. 64 was particularly tolerant of people, allowing hikers to come fairly close without swiping her paws. Her story came to an end in late 2013, when she likely died of natural causes, as she was never seen again.
A second hookup was with bear 72, another famous matriarch. Her story came to an end when she plummeted off an icy cliff in 2013, having made it to age 22. Her turf was Lake Louis, and in 2010, she gave birth to two female cubs fathered by the Boss, bears number 142 and 143.
Sadly, there was a tragic end for 143, who was struck by a train and killed in September 2020, lacking her father’s train dodging timing. For 142, the situation is bittersweet: she was sighted with 2 cubs in 2020, meaning that The Boss is now a grandfather. But in April 2020, park managers found the heavyweight male bear Split Lip sleeping on a bear cub carcass. Unfortunately, infanticide and cannibalism are part of the bear world. When they later spotted The Boss’ daughter 142, she only had one of her 2 and a half year old cubs left.
| 9 | Clash of the titans |
Which makes the next story all the more intriguing. Split Lip is just as notorious as the Boss, one upping the black bear antics by eating another grizzly bear (no. 132) in June 2015, devouring the whole carcass so that researchers could collect the skull. He gained his signature mouth wound from a fight with not The Boss, but a different bear. But the fight he’d been longing for came his way in September 2020.
As he spent 40 minutes chewing peacefully on some dandelions in a meadow, The Boss charged through the woods and unleashed a swipe at Split Lip’s head, who ducked instantly. Despite their equally brutish reputations, it emerged that the Boss was the dominant bear, as Split Lip didn’t even attempt to fight, dashing away, before The Boss chased him for 3km down the highway. Was this revenge for killing his granddaughter? Probably not, if we’re being honest.
The two bears appear to be arch enemies. It’s a rivalry which has been brewing for years, as the same happened in 2012, when The Boss showed up and Split Lip instantly fled down a hillside. In June 2014, the authorities shut down the whole of Lake Vermillion near Banff after Split Lip and The Boss were seen wandering the roads at the same time. The fear was that at the peak of the breeding season, they would get into a fight over a mother with two cubs hanging out nearby. Even the Banff Marathon was forced to change route.
As wildlife manager Jon Stuart Smith put it, “We suspect that most of the scars that those bears have were caused by encounters with each other“.
| 10 | Murky origins |
The weird thing is that nobody’s quite sure where The Boss’ nickname came from. In the earliest news reports covering his manic hunting spree in 2013, he’s only referred to as No. 122. It could have been an ordinary member of the public, or a low level journalist, with the name eventually sticking, but someone, somewhere came up with it.
It’s rumoured that one time, The Boss casually walked down the streets of downtown Banff before disappearing again. The only problem, according to Banff officials, is that with all his outrageous deeds, people are now viewing him as a cartoon Disney bear rather than a real animal.
It’s lucky then, that for all his ferocity, The Boss has never once attacked a human being. Because of crossing highways and regular encounters on forest hiking trails, he has become habituated to our presence, understanding that humans aren’t a threat.
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