The grizzly wades through the water, eyes downcast, 

surveying the slow-moving stream for spawning salmon. The image, steady until now, suddenly shakes as the cameraman takes a step backwards. The bruin, oblivious to the human hidden along the shore, continues its search, turning straight towards the lens. 

“That’s close enough,” the camera operator says, firm, but incredibly calm considering the situation. The bear looks straight    

ahead, a pair of black  eyes set deep in a dark brown skull. 

“That’s close enough,” the man repeats, and the distinctive sound of pepper spray being unclipped can be heard in the background. In a flash, the bear turns heel and splashes across the river, never looking back. Roll credits.

That stunning sequence makes up the final few frames of “Sheep and Grizzly Country”, the latest offering from McBride wildlife filmmaker Leon Lorenz. The 45-minute DVD may have a title that inspires bucolic images of open meadows and mountain faces, but make no mistake, this film is all excitement from start to finish.

Combining footage of bighorn sheep and grizzly bears might not be the most logical pairing, but Lorenz had his reasons. 

“These are two of the most exciting animals in the Rockies so I did it from a marketing point of view,” he says from his home base. “I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.”

The collection of footage for a wildlife film is a remarkably time-consuming process, so Lorenz may be wise indeed to try and save some footage for future projects.

“It takes an incredible amount of time to acquire the footage for a film,” he says. “I followed one group of sheep every day for two weeks. Grizzlies are so much more difficult, too. They are one of the hardest animals to film, with their developed sense of smell for one thing. They are very, very elusive.”

Lorenz started archiving for this film in 1998, and shot hours of grazing, sleeping and defacating. He’s always on the lookout for that unique footage that will separate his films from the pack of wildlife DVDs that populate gift store shelves in Western Canada.

“It seems 1,000 times harder to get good pictures than to just spot the animals,” he says. “So many little things can happen, but when everything goes well, it’s an incredible feeling.”

One of those moments when everything came together is captured in the first minutes of “Sheep and Grizzly Country”. After following a group of sheep for days on Cinquefoil Mountain east of Jasper, Lorenz saw the signs that a battle for dominance was about to break out among the herd’s ram population. What happened next was a four-way fight for supremacy that left the combatants bloodied and broken — footage that sets the film apart from all others in the genre.

“If it wasn’t tough, the pictures wouldn’t be worth anything,” Lorenz philosophizes. “So I’m glad it’s tough.”

Growing up in B.C.’s Robson Valley, Lorenz has always been the consummate outdoorsman, hunting, fishing and trapping from a very young age. There was more to his love for the mountain environment and the animals that made the Rockies their home, however.

“I remember seeing a movie in school about beavers, I must have been nine years old or whatever, and I told myself, I’m going to do that one day.”

That’s all there was to it, in the beginning. In 1991, Lorenz set about making his first wildlife film armed with a simple Hi-8. The product pales in comparison to what he can shoot nowadays, but it was a start.

“I’ve never been to a film school, never taken a course. I’ve just been through the school of hard knocks I guess,” he jokes. “It’s been quite a learning experience.”

That means more than the practicalities of how to prepare to track camera-shy carnivores through the bush. Lorenz has also gained a deep knowledge and true appreciation for the creatures he covers. The narration of his films is all business, imparting facts and figures about the animals, their behaviour and habitat.

“Getting stuff together and telling a nice story doesn’t just happen, it takes quite a bit of work,” Lorenz says. “I want the films to be first and foremost about education, but you need to have a balance with entertainment as well. The footage is what makes it entertaining and the education comes through the script.”

The response to “Sheep and Grizzly Country” has been universally positive, Lorenz reports, including kind words from King Motion Pictures in Edmonton, a company that Lorenz has relied on in the past to provide support and looks to as an example of quality wildlife filmmaking.

“They called up and said they were so pleased with the film and said we’re so proud of you to have produced something like this,” he says. “They said some of that footage would be worth $50 to $100,000 for broadcast.”

The search for the one in a million shot keeps Lorenz going. His latest project, called “Journey Home” has hit the editing suite, and promises to be the first in depth look at bears and salmon in the Fraser River watershed in B.C.

“I could have gone to Alaska to film, but that’s been done,” Lorenz says. “But to do this for the Chinook salmon in the Fraser, it’s never been done. It took me six years to get my first good picture, so it’s going to be nice to release this one.”

The subjects get more specific and the shooting more difficult, but Lorenz has many more ideas where “Journey Home” and “Sheep and Grizzly Country” came from.

“The subjects are endless,” he says. “So many things out there in the wild never have the human eye on them. I’ve filmed lynx attacking a snowshoe hare, eagles battling geese, a coyote sneaking up on grouse.”

When animals attack, Leon Lorenz will be there. You can find his films in several local gift stores, including Cavell Drugs, Jasper Camera and Gift, Pine Cones and Pussy Willows and Maligne Tours. They are also available on his website, at wildlifevideos.ca