04/14/2026
Split Lip was not supposed to become a celebrity. He was just a very large male grizzly with a ripped jaw, a thousand-square-kilometre territory, and a talent for turning up somewhere inconvenient.
Officially, he is Bear 136. Unofficially, he is Split Lip - a name earned from a distinctive tear down the side of his mouth, almost certainly from a confrontation with The Boss, the dominant male who has ruled the Bow Valley for years. The scar gives him a permanent expression that suggests he has heard your opinion and does not think much of it.
His spring routine involves the railway line along the Bow Valley Parkway, where spilt grain from freight trains provides an easy post-hibernation meal. It is a habit he shares with The Boss, which is part of why their encounters keep happening in public. The most famous was July 2020 - The Boss charged into a meadow where Split Lip was eating dandelions and chased him three kilometres down the parkway. No contact. Just a very clear message about who was in charge.
Split Lip has also killed cubs, which sounds shocking until you understand it as a calculated reproductive strategy - eliminate rivals' offspring, mate with the mother sooner, pass on your own genes. He has been linked to cub disappearances since 2014. In 2020, he was found feeding on the remains of a younger bear near Morant's Curve. Parks Canada closed the parkway and let him finish.
In December, he wandered onto the slopes at Lake Louise mid-ski-race and briefly shut the whole thing down. He left when he was ready.
He is not aggressive toward people. He simply does not consider us particularly relevant. Parks Canada focuses less on managing him and more on managing the crowds he generates - the bear jams, the wildlife paparazzi, the people who inch along active railway tracks for a photograph.
That last part is the problem nobody wants to talk about. 🐻
We've written the full story - the rivalry, the incidents, the grain spills, and what a bear like Split Lip reveals about the park we think we know.
What do you think needs to change before the conflict catches up with him?