Snout cresting the water, the sea wolf passed about 20 feet from our 10-passenger boat, swimming strongly for shore from a rock islet in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.
©Linda Barnard
We had been up before dawn on Maple Leaf Adventures‘ 138-foot expedition catamaran Cascadia, hoping to spot an elusive sea wolf, a rare species whose main diet is seafood. Remarkably, it swims to get it.
We’d had reason to be optimistic. There had been two brief sea wolf sightings the day before while Cascadia’s 18 passengers were on the island’s white sand beach for a pre-dinner wine and cheese sundowner. The wolf watched us, then moved on.
Cascadia took us into the heart of Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, a protected area the size of the Republic of Ireland and one of the most remote places on Earth.
Home to Coastal First Nations people for over 10,000 years, it stretches 250 miles north along coastal British Columbia to the southern tip of Alaska. There are no through roads or cruise ships here. It’s a place of deep fjords, milky blue waters, and old-growth trees, accessible only by seaplane and boat. It’s so quiet that we could hear the exhalations of humpback whales.
Here, black bears can also be creamy white due to a genetic mutation. Among the world’s rarest animals, they have great cultural significance to First Nations people, who call them Spirit Bears.
At a time when much of the planet seems overwhelmed by threats from human activity, an excursion into this place of pristine natural beauty and abundant wildlife made those of us onboard want to ensure it stays as it is forever.
Protecting the Great Bear Rainforest
B.C.-based ecotourism business Maple Leaf Adventures fosters that mindset through sustainable travel that leaves no trace on water or land. It supports local communities through employment and has protocol agreements with First Nations communities.
The company’s three small ships and their crews participate in massive annual shoreline cleanup projects with other volunteer partners. Tons of marine debris, including heavy fishing nets and spilled shipping container loads, were cleared and recycled. The bad news is that the shorelines don’t stay clean for long.
Haisla First Nations guests Louisa Smith and Liz Robinson joined us for the voyage. They shared stories and insights into their culture to help us connect with their traditional homeland territory, known as the Kitlope. It’s the last stand of protected temperate rainforest on the planet.
Smith’s late brother, Xenaksiala elder and author Wa’xaid (Cecil) Paul, was a key figure in the work to protect the 800,000-acre Kitlope from industrial logging. He called the Kitlope the cathedral, its waters Mother Earth’s arteries. He often sailed with Maple Leaf Adventures, sharing his knowledge with passengers.
“At its heart, this is what tourism should be,” Robinson said. Her father was a hereditary chief in Kitimat, where Cascadia set sail.
Traveling on Nature’s Schedule
When we pulled away from the dock to start the journey, it was the last time we did anything by a set schedule.
That wasn’t a bad thing.
What we saw — or didn’t see — couldn’t be planned. Tides, weather, and wildlife set the pace. We didn’t see a Spirit Bear, but it hardly mattered. If we got waylaid on a tender trip up the Kitlope River by a juvenile grizzly, bear doggie paddling across an estuary, brown ears bobbing, who wouldn’t want to hang around to watch that?
With flexible itineraries, a one-hour exploratory “tender tootle,” as Smith called them, could easily stretch to three or four hours. Chefs Pete Keegan and Mara Jernigan made sure we were never hungry, sending us off in the boats with containers of homemade muffins and scones.
We gathered in the spacious salon on Cascadia each morning for coffee and a pre-breakfast of homemade granola, fruit, and yogurt as Smith and Captain Jeff Harvey conferred at an interactive navigational map. We watched them plan the day’s route on the wall-mounted big-screen TV.
Smith wrote the expected itinerary for excursions, sailings, and meals, what he jokingly called Plan A, on a whiteboard beside the bar.
We’d end the day at anchor in a bay or fjord, meeting in the salon for a pre-dinner glass of British Columbia wine or beer or the cocktail of the day, soft jazz playing on the salon speakers.
We went days without seeing any other vessel. The ones we did see were sailboats or small watercraft used to travel between communities.
Making the Wild Accessible
Cascadia’s passengers were mostly urbanites from cities in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and British Columbia. Marty, a retired Los Angeles police detective, kept remarking on the enveloping silence, something he had never experienced in his lifetime, not even on fishing trips in Alaska.
Tender boats made wild spaces accessible, getting us to a rainforest hike or a stop to identify a dozen different animal tracks on a beach. Those of us with temperamental knees who might not be happy climbing in and out of a Zodiac were glad for the drop-front bows, which meant we could walk off with ease.
The crew were experts at steering the nimble little watercraft. They nosed the boats beneath magnificent waterfalls where we leaned over the front ramps to fill reusable cups with glacier water, whooping with glee as we toasted each other.
Smith explained that the negative ions waterfalls create are nature’s happiness generator. “Have you ever been unhappy at a waterfall?” he asked.
When we were on the move, the tethered tender boats followed behind Cascadia like obedient spaniels.
Cascadia also carried surprisingly stable inflated kayaks. We used them for pre-breakfast or pre-dinner paddles around the calm bays, where we watched jumping fish, waterfowl, eagles, and herons.
The Maple Leaf Fleet
Cascadia was built in New Zealand in 2007. Maple Leaf purchased it in 2019 to join the company’s converted heritage tug, Swell, and the circa-1904, 92-foot schooner, Maple Leaf. The ships have small passenger lists and sail various expedition routes in B.C. and Alaska.
Cascadia is the largest of the three, with a crew of 10 to support the 18 passengers and plenty of places to relax on board, including a spacious covered rear deck where we had lunch on sunny afternoons.
My cabin was comfortable and simply furnished. Its walls were covered with First Nations art, and there was lots of storage, including a row of hooks on one wall. These were ideal for drying waterproof pants and jackets after outings.
Passengers were provided with thick-soled rubber boots, which worked better than hiking shoes for getting off tenders in shallow water for shore excursions and forest walks. There were also hiking poles. I appreciated the heated bathroom floor on chilly mornings. The shower had locally made Vancouver Island toiletries.
Life Onboard
I didn’t spend a lot of time in my cabin, though. If I wasn’t on deck admiring the scenery as we sailed, watching for humpback and killer whales, visiting the bridge, or taking a soak in the top-deck hot tub, I loved being in the salon.
With natural light from large windows, there was a well-stocked library of nature and local history books and an excellent espresso machine. Some passengers played cards or board games or sat at a long dining table to work on a wildlife and nature-mapping project with naturalist Janet Winbourne. Others tried watercolors or indulged in a sofa catnap.
Winbourne taught us about local animals and the wild world around us. For example, she explained how salmon are key to forest health, as their carcasses provide most of the nitrogen the trees use. She also helped us safely hold and examine bright purple sea stars (starfish) and vermillion sea urchins. She showed us three different carnivorous plants in the forest, all tiny and perfect in their hunting skills.
At our anchorage one night in mountain-ringed Chief Mathews Bay, Smith saw the undulating green display of the Northern Lights. We signed up with deckhand Mike, who handled the overnight watch, to wake us the next night if there was a repeat. I felt my only disappointment on the trip when I woke with the sun in my eyes.
Digital Detox
Because Maple Leaf believes Wi-Fi takes passengers away from the world outside the ship, guests are on a week-long digital detox. It felt strange at first, but within a day or two, I didn’t miss it. It was pleasant to get to know fellow passengers over meals without the distraction of phones on the table.
A Little Floating Boutique Hotel
Good food makes for good conversation. We enjoyed a hot breakfast every morning, with dishes like wild salmon Eggs Benedict or pancakes with maple syrup and sausages. Vegetarian guests were well looked after. Lunches were wraps, burgers, stews, and curries. A savory snack like locally smoked wild salmon, dips, and Vancouver Island cheese came out at about 3 p.m.
Three-course dinners accompanied by excellent B.C. wines included local seafood like snow-white halibut and albacore tuna from a sustainable purveyor in Victoria, Maple Leaf’s home port on Vancouver Island.
Thanks to the two youngest passengers, who had fishing licenses, we also had Dungeness crab. The traps were dropped overnight in the cold, clear water, baited with wild salmon skin from a previous dinner.
“Fresh food is a given,” said Jernigan, the sous chef on this trip. She’s the former president of Slow Food Canada, whose 45-year career includes running a cooking school in Italy and working at some of Toronto’s top restaurants.
Sustainability and no-waste cooking are her passions.
“It’s a very exciting thing, that crab from the Kitlope,” she said. “That’s so rare and special to eat seafood from a place where you don’t see another boat. It’s a little floating boutique hotel, this ship.”
Whale Watching
Whale Channel lived up to its name.
We spotted dozens of the heart-shaped blows of spouting humpbacks in the distance. The animals made slow arcs out of the water to breathe, ending by showing their massive tails, each as unique as a fingerprint. One humpback breached with magnificent leaps, while two others slapped six-foot pectoral fins in whale communication.
Winbourne and Smith pointed out that when the spouts converged on the other side of the channel, the whales were hunting as a group.
We saw orcas and super-fast Dall’s porpoises.
Since it’s against Canadian law to get closer than 330 feet—about a football field length—from a whale, the captain cut the engines to keep Cascadia a safe distance from the humpbacks. The whales decided to come closer to check us out, which Smith said was unusual.
We could smell the exhaled air rushing from their twin blowholes. It smelled like a mix of rotting seafood and farts.
“I think we expected wildlife. What we got was much more in terms of scenery and the whole geology of the place and the variation of different types of wildlife,” said retired engineer David, from the U.K., who was traveling with his wife, Sheila, a retired nurse. “I thought we might see a few bears if we were lucky. Everything else was just a shock.”
Lessons From the Rainforest
Each place we sailed was an opportunity to learn.
One day, we traveled up a narrow channel in the tenders to a river, where we watched struggling, dying pink salmon flop in the rocky shallows at the end of their spawn and life cycle. They created the next generation and will feed the eagles, grizzlies, and the forest with their deaths.
“This place is a perfect system that endures and continues,” Smith said. “It will always be here.”
If You Go
Three Maple Leaf Adventures small ships sail to the Great Bear Rainforest from April to October. Trips run five to nine days and include all meals, wine and beer. Rates start at $5,750, depending on vessel, trip length, and dates. They are subject to a $200 sustainability fee per person, plus a 5 percent federal tax in Canada. Fares are per person, based on double occupancy, and in Canadian dollars.
Getting There
Airfare is extra. Passengers take an under two-hour flight from Vancouver to Terrace, British Columbia. The 45-minute shuttle transfer to the marina at Kitimat is included.
For details, mapleleafadventures.com
Maple Leaf Adventures sponsored the author’s trip.
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Linda Barnard is a British Columbia freelance journalist who writes about food and travel. Read her work at lindabarnardportfolio.com
