I've seen trees like that in SE. I don't recall ever seeing a rub tree specifically, but trees where bears appeared to be marking their boundaries by reaching up as high as they could and raking the tree; he who can reach the highest is the biggest seemed to be the message they were trying to get across.

More brown bear tree's.







Some rub trees etc in use:










Black bears always check them out, and they use them some too:

Cool pictures Spek.

Aknative Ive never bought into the territory marking.....bears bite/claw the trees in the spring to get the sap running, then rub their winter coats.....any bear that happens along will use them. Ive also seen 4 big boars in the same berry patch.....

Yukon I think this sequence from an Alberta rub tree illustrates your point. Quite a list of characters visiting the tree



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihvuZiDhsg

Spek - Gary Shelton (?) wrote a pretty good book about grizzlies. He claims they'll often establish a rub tree in close proximity to a new man made structure, like cabin. Your photos above almost seem to support that if those were new rub trees.

That video is always a hoot!



I wasn't sure, but it seemed to jive in my head at the time.

Thanks Yukon.

It's pretty common here for them to hang around a remote cabin or tent frame. They have chewed the cabin walls just like they do their rub trees.
Back when I was using this tent frame a lot in the '70's and on up into the '90's the bears never messed with it much. Now, they spend a lot of time around it and have several rub trees within a short distance of it.

But yeah, I don't think the rub trees are a territorial thing. Pictures from trail cameras I've had out often shows as many as 15 or 20 different bears using the same rub tree within a period of a couple of months. It's things like this trail through the yard that I take as a "no trespassing" sign. When they make a trail like this in a matter of a few hours in a place where there was no trail before, I think they are trying to tell you something.

Man they must have really been twisting their feet Spek, showing you who is boss.



I spent the day reviewing some of our footage captured over the last 45 days in the field. Sorry I can't share that film gold at this point but I do have a few screen shots I took with my phone to share





We had a lot of wolf action over the last week or so. The two youngest members of the pack hung around the most. One of them had a significant wound on one leg. Perhaps a war wound from breeding season.





We got a lot of wolverine footage and multiple individuals. This one ended up being named shaggy.

The research team was able to find den sites by way of the collar downloads. We put a trail cam up and captured a female exiting. This shot shows her butt and the den hole.

Awesome. They must have a den site picked out in the fall before the snow and freeze. Very cool stuff Brian

Len - That den had a couple of kits in it when they found it. But she moved them after a week or so. they followed the collar signal to a site about 2 miles away. It is a an area about 1/2 mile square full of blown down timber with the root balls sticking up. And it was full of tracks and pounded trails and more dens sites. They found several dens, all empty. They also found a huge toilet site where there was fresh scat and very old scat scattered about, about 20 yards across. The collar doesn't send a readable signal when the female is in the den so they couldn't pinpoint her location, as of last weekend anyways. The more we learn the less we know.

Whitey Lives! The albino squirrel has resurfaced at my home place. Good to see the little fellow survived the winter. I noticed he's pretty quiet, perhaps compensating for standing out so much?

That's a cool pet.

Man this time of year is my least favorite. Spring conditions make it tough to mountain travel as I get rock, snow, ice, gravel, creek, all in one mile of trail. All I can do is plan ahead for summer. We're looking at several different routes this year for our horse packing trips and a buddy and I are already making plans for a sheep hunt in late August. in the meantime here's a few pics from previous expeditions into the hills.

great pictures !

View from my back window a few days ago

That's some awesome looking country and great shots!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/caribou-adrift-as-ice-breaks-up-near-old-crow-yukon-1.2636302

check this out