Angela Laryea bubbles with excitement when she speaks about an animal she saw in the North Shuswap recently.

She was heading home to Lee Creek from work in Scotch Creek in the early evening of May 20 when she spotted a bear.

An unusual bear.

It was maybe 20 to 30 feet away and it was white, a bit shaggy, with a black head.

鈥淲hen I first saw it I thought it was a sheep,鈥� she said. When it turned around her first thought was that it was covered in snow, but she quickly realized the impossibility of that notion.

鈥淲hen I think about it, he looked dirty, that鈥檚 why I thought he was rolling in the snow.鈥�

Then she thought, maybe the bear was covered in pollen.

But no, not that either.

She said her car was quite close to the animal before it sauntered off.

It was a white bear with a black head.

Read more:

Laryea said she was told it was a Spirit Bear, which she didn鈥檛 know existed. She said she鈥檚 lived in the area for 30 years and has never seen anything like it.

She鈥檚 been telling everyone she knows about the bear and, finally, on June 1, someone else she knows saw it.

鈥淢y good friend鈥檚 daughter took that (photo) and couldn鈥檛 wait to share it with me as I鈥檝e been telling the world.鈥�

Laryea said the bear in the photo had shed somewhat since she last saw it, but she鈥檚 assuming it鈥檚 the same bear.

She hopes she鈥檒l have the good fortune of seeing it again.

Although initial calls around the area and to the conservation office haven鈥檛 yet produced further information on such a bear, the internet鈥檚 bear.org uses the name Spirit Bear and Kermode bear interchangeably. Those bears, however, are pictured as all white and it states only about 100 of them remain. Laryea said she鈥檚 seen a Kermode bear before and the one she saw looks different.

鈥淢ost Spirit Bears live on Princess Royal and Gribbell Islands along the rainforest coast of British Columbia,鈥� states the bear.org website. 鈥淭hey are considered a subspecies of black bears called Kermode bears (Ursus americanus kermodeii). About 20 percent of the bears on those islands are white; the rest are black. On the mainland, the percentage of white bears drops off drastically with distance from those islands.鈥�

Read more: