The Serengeti may have a lock on our collective imagination when it comes to safaris, but there are other places where you can come face-to-face with wildlife in its natural habitat, and you don’t have to look further than Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest.
Its 6.4 million hectares of fjords, rainforest and islands have become a global beacon for ethical and sustainable nature travel. One of the companies responsible for that reputation is BC’s Maple Leaf Adventures, which developed its yacht-based safaris here in the early 1990s. The company offers several itineraries this summer and fall.
A Different Kind of Safari
Like all great safaris, these trips are designed to highlight and work in harmony with the place. And what is the place like?
Once guests board the yacht, and the crew unties the lines that tether it to the end of the road, they’ve left behind the humdrum of modern urban life. As the bow points down the channel, into the maze of coastal islands, mountains rise up to hide that road and soon the pathways are made of water and all one can see, and hear, and smell is nature.
It’s a world where time is measured in the rise and fall of the tide, or the millennia it took a river to erode a mountain and spill mud at its mouth where a meadow now grows. Indicators of change are the yellowing of meadow sedges, the muscular pulse of salmon into the creeks, and the return of bears to the meadows in August to fish.
Because the region's fjords and archipelagos have no roads, guests move between locations and live and dine aboard one of Maple Leaf’s three expedition yachts. They go ashore multiple times a day for guided wildlife viewing, beach explorations, rainforest walks or other activities.
A Front Row Seat to Nature’s Spectacle
In spring, grizzly bears munch bright green sedges, wildflowers bloom, snowcapped peaks shine above the sea, and marine mammals patrol the channels.
Summer trips feature more whales and seabirds as well as adventures on hard-to-reach to west coast island chains and beaches. On a fall safari, salmon are the wildebeest, and the coast’s intricate channels and creeks are the Serengeti plain. Marine mammals hunt the salmon in the sea, while bears, wolves and eagles hunt them in the creeks.
Canadian Janet Fraser explored it recently on Maple Leaf’s restored tugboat Swell.
For Janet, the expedition was an opportunity to reconnect with the natural world: “The ship and zodiac were able to go places most people will never see, to get up close to nature and see animals where they are meant to be.”
Sharing this experience with like-minded individuals made her adventure all the more memorable, along with “a crew that respected the environment and did their utmost to leave no trace and ‘take nothing but pictures.’”
Regenerative Travel: A Force for Good
As an ecotourism company, Maple Leaf has always given back to the natural world that supports the trips, and also respected the rights and title of the coastal First Nations. For decades the company has worked with the Gitga’at, Kitasoo / Xai’Xais, and Heiltsuk governments on protocol and economic agreements, and with local guides. Travellers’ values have caught on over the years – even more so as we dealt with the pandemic.
If sustainable tourism was the ecotourism benchmark before the pandemic, the new frontier is “regenerative travel,” or leaving a place better than you found it. Holidaymakers are increasingly seeking eco-conscious, bucket-list trips, with a new survey from Booking.com revealing 53% are looking to travel more sustainably.
The Great Bear Rainforest is the perfect destination for this kind of traveller. During a historic land-use planning process for the area that Maple Leaf Adventures’ CEO was part of, the consensus-based decision-making group determined they needed to replace an extractive economy based on clear-cut logging with a conservation-based economy, of which eco-tourism was a pillar. Since then, many locally owned companies have flourished, making the Great Bear a destination for discerning nature travellers, and protecting millions of hectares of rainforest, uncountable numbers of bears, wolves and whales in the process.
For guests, Maple Leaf expeditions also provide an opportunity to learn about the conservation work being done and its benefits to the coast, as well as to connect with people along the way, including leaders of Indigenous communities and scientists, who are often part of the guiding crew. Whatever the itinerary, guests have a chance to connect with nature in a meaningful way.
What is a typical day?
Our shore trips are natural and unimpeded by crowd management techniques required on larger ships. You’ll find the trips interesting but also with the unscripted fun of a small-group exploration.
Morning
Wake up in beautiful wilderness anchorage. Take your morning tea or coffee on deck, observing the bay and rainforest, and any wildlife that’s moving around. Bear viewing among the ords or visit a cultural site or whale research station.
Weigh anchor and view beautiful scenery as the ship begins its course to the next destination. Join the navigation crew in the wheelhouse, talk with the naturalist on deck, watch for whales, porpoises and eagles.
Afternoon
Enjoy lunch prepared with locally foraged ingredients by on-board chef. Shore trip by zodiac, exploring an archipelago of small islands, some areas so wild they’re not yet fully charted. View the activity at a sea lion haul-out.
Evening
Weigh anchor and cruising to new area for the night’s anchorage. Shore trip by zodiac. Evening activities could include hot springs visit, watching the sunset at a beach fire, naturalist lecture/slide show, evening kayak at anchorage, on-deck hot tub, stargazing, etc. Dinner is served, contemporary west-coast cuisine.
