O
in the northern Yukon’s Porcupine River region, John and Janet Foster, wildlife photographers and filmmakers with credits on documentaries such as CBC’S 2014 series, were on an expedition to film caribou. As they prepared breakfast on the first morning with their local Gwich’in guides, a pair of gray jays flew down to inspect them and their frying pan, happy to share camp if it meant potentially also sharing the bacon. “The loons had gone south,” Janet Foster says, “the Canada geese had left, and the snowy owls would soon be on their way from the North, leaving only the tough, truly Canadian species that face winter.” The Fosters have often been greeted by gray jays, from the Yukon to Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, but they recall that encounter in particular. “We wondered how many thousands of times this scene has been repeated throughout Canada’s history,” says Foster, “as explorers and Indigenous people moved across the northern landscape and were welcomed at every campsite.” In a sense, these fearless birds were participants in formative periods in Canada’s history — and not in the way beavers, bison and humpback whales were participants. Gray jays have been the frequent companions of First Nations hunters and trappers, and the laughs of voyageurs have surely rung out in the woods as they were entertained by the birds’ antics. Today, they alight in mining and lumber camps and research stations, and follow hikers and skiers down trails in provincial, territorial and national parks. The gray jay Canada’s national bird, the friendly spirit of the wild northern and mountain forests. It’s a blend of modest, monochromatic plumage and a vibrant nature in an unforgiving habitat that blankets nearly two-thirds of our country.
MANY CANADIANS,
particularly the city dwellers among us, have yet to see a gray jay. That didn’t seem to matter, however, as the National Bird Project unfolded and this unassuming avian was the only species during public voting to make a run at the illustrious loon and snowy owl, eclipsing the Canada goose, black-capped chickadee and raven. The gray jay’s intelligence and mischievous personality proved major selling points. As a corvid (a member of the crow and raven family), it enjoys the same brainto-body ratio as dolphins and chimpanzees — and nearly that of humans. This helps not only in interspecies interactions but also in recalling the locations of food stashes hidden throughout its territory, affixed by its gluey saliva inside cracks in bark and under lichens. This “scatterhoarding” makes it possible for gray jays to remain in Canada through the winter. And they don’t merely survive when most other birds have fled: they thrive. Unique for nesting in the harshest, darkest months, gray jays have been recorded