Wildlife Bonanza

Tues. 22^nd September ’26

The highlights for Vancouver Island are seeing Bears and Whales. We have two full days in Campbell River and one option was to go on a bear trip one day and a whale trip the other. I don’t always travel well in boats and zodiacs are scary, so we agreed on just the Grizzy Bear tour. We have been on whale trips in other countries and have spent more time staring at the sea than watching whales. The trips are very busy and when we booked back in June the tours were selling fast and we squeezed on the 10am boat to Bute Inlet. This was a good choice as a) it was not a silly start time and b) the boat took 12 people plus skipper.

Laurel, a retired school principal who grew up on one of the islands has a great love for the area and the animals. She was a fantastic skipper with Campbell River Adventure tours who we can totally recommend. Six British, four Germans and two Americans were all ready to go early so no hanging around and we piled onto our boat for the day. The Bute Inlet is a couple of hours away by boat weaving through the islands, and we had time on the way there to explore.

First up, we headed to where whales had been spotted earlier in the morning and quickly we spotted the tell-tale sign of spurts of water flying up into the air, closely followed by a whale surfacing. The first two humpback whales we saw were half asleep and only a very small part of the body came above water, so not very spectacular (am I getting picky??). Some livelier whales had been spotted a couple of minutes ahead so we went to investigate. These ones put on a better show and we managed a few shots of the tails in the air. They circled us for a while before it was time for us to move on.

Laurel had plenty of tales about the islands where she grew up and spent many a summer camping on a deserted island, which she dreamed was her own. The islands are covered in coniferous trees and unlike Jasper the forest fires have not reached here. As we entered Bute Inlet the water colour became more turquoise-green from glacial “rock flour” and we were soon moored up and munching on our chicken wraps waiting for our turn to go on a bear hunt. I was impressed at how eco friendly the tour company was. The lunch and snacks were all freshly hand made and in paper bags. The drinking water for each of us was in reusable metal bottles.

After about ten minutes, two mini bus trucks appeared, one for us and one for the Big Animal tour group whose boat arrived just before us. After a quick stop at the interpretation centre and facilities we were off in convoy. The tour is run by indigenous guides from the Homalco First Nation who were very knowledgeable about the area and wildlife. We were not sure where to set our expectations of whether we would see any bears and the guides were not saying. The first stop by the river had no bears but many dead salmon on the banks. The guide explained that the salmon had spawned and job done, their life is over. I was relieved it was natural causes not any sort of pollution.

The second stop we all trooped up two levels of stairs to a viewing platform overlooking another part of the river. After five minutes we all began heading back to the minibus wondering if we would have any luck today, when there was a rustle in the bushes and out came a grizzly bear with a cub. We all stayed there for a while just watching the bears catching and eating salmon from the river, both the dead ones and also catching live ones. The salmon did not put up much resistance so no spectacular shows of tail flapping, but impressive all the same.

Each group’s time with the bears is limited to allow other groups on different tours to have a chance to see the bears and also to give the bears peace from being watched. The bears could smell us, so were not completely at ease. We were buzzing from seeing the bears in their natural habitat, so any more bears we saw would be a bonus. Well, I think we saw about 12 in total. At one point we were looking one way at two bears when we were called to turn around and we saw a mum and three cubs in the river feeding and playing. Needless to say we took 180 photos each and could easily have taken many more!!

Whilst this was happening a bald eagle perched on a tree high above us watching an excited group of tourists. He was too far away for my long lens but Dave managed to capture him. All too soon it was time to head back to our boat on the jetty for our journey back to Campbell River but that did not mean our wildlife spotting was over for the day. Over the radio Laurel was informed there were dolphins so off we went. We headed through a narrow passage where we had seen zodiacs playing on the rapids earlier. The water was calmer but there were still a number of whirlpools making the journey interesting.

I expected a few dolphins but there must have been at least a dozen putting on a show, darting in formation across the water. The light was fading but we waited by the dolphins for a fellow boat to arrive, so we could show them the dolphins. It was gone 7:30 by the time we were back at dock so we decided to head to the Riptide Marine pub where we had eaten last night to relax, eat and reflect on the fantastic day we had just experienced and all the wildlife we had seen.