You’ve got ‘be-air’ mail: Curious Metchosin bear delivers laughs at mailbox
Published 9:00 am Saturday, June 27, 2026
Anyone in Metchosin wondering where their mail-order salmon may have disappeared to might have to head out on a hike to retrieve it.
A curious black bear was caught on camera stopping by a community mailbox on Liberty Drive, sniffing around, possibly looking for an easy snack – or perhaps some long-awaited ‘be-air’ mail from a distant relative.
For longtime Metchosin resident Barbara Cina, bear sightings are nothing out of the ordinary. But when she spotted the animal rise onto its back legs to inspect the mailbox, she couldn’t look away.
“At first I was thinking should I even bother to pull out my camera, because you see bears here every once in a while, it’s nothing that extraordinary,” she said.
“And then all of a sudden, he was kind of just looking at, sniffing at those mailboxes, and then he stood up, and I just started clicking.
“It was all very brief. I was in the right spot, at the right time.”
After the bear wandered off, Cina continued on her way to work Thursday morning (June 25), briefly pulling over to share the unexpected encounter with her husband, Guido, who posted the photos on social media.
The jokes soon started pouring in online, says Cina.
From wisecracks about Canada Post cuts going too far, to quips about missing paychecks, folks found plenty of light relief in the furry wannabe mail-carrier.
“They said things like Canada Post is now employing animals because they’re cheaper and they don’t need breaks,” said Cina. “Or ‘they finally sent my fresh salmon that I ordered’ – so many funny comments.”
As for the real reason why the bear was so interested in the mailbox, Cina can only speculate.
“Obviously, the bear is not checking for mail, let’s be honest,” she says with a laugh. “A bear is driven by a search for food, so maybe it was a smell … but I have no clue, no clue, it was just funny to watch.”