An amazing visit to Farewell Harbour Lodge on the Broughton Archipelago with so many sightings of whales, grizzly bears and other wildlife.
Broughton Archipelago - mostly whales
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We flew from Vancouver to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island in a small plane and were met by a driver who took us to Alder Bay. Around an hour later the boat from Farewell Harbour Lodge arrived, dropping off some people returning to the airport and picking us up, along with four others.
It took us some time to get to Farewell Harbour Lodge because there were so many humpback whales around!
Farewell Harbour Lodge is a true wilderness retreat, located on Berry Island within the Broughton Archipelago Marine Park. It has only 12 rooms all looking out onto the harbour. The food here was fantastic and the rooms have gas fires which are lovely to come back to on chilly evenings.
On arrival we had an excellent lunch of bacon and potato soup, humus with flatbread, Pad Thai and salad before an orientation talk by Tim, one of the owners and a fitting for our wet gear, provided by the Lodge. Then we were taken back out on the boat to see maine wildlife. It was a glorious day and we saw a lot more humpbacks and many sea lions.
A number of sea lions were hauled out onto the rocks sunning themselves...
... while a large group just seemed to be playing in the water.
It was an incredible first day and we finished it off on returning to the Lodge by freshening up and having a beer by the fire pit on the deck before an excellent dinner: Thai coconut soup, beetroot dip with tortilla chips, pork tenderloin, an Indian curry, followed by blueberry and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream.
The following day we had a 7am start for Knight's Inlet, looking for bears. We had our wet gear just in case.
Our guide was Renée who had been with us yesterday afternoon, and our pilot was Daryl, very experienced.
Scouring the shoreline it took a while but then we spotted a large grizzly working the foreshore for food. It was turning over large rocks looking for fish and eels, clawing mussels and barnacles off rocks, crushing them and licking the meat off its paws.
When the foreshore was obstructed by a large rock the bear took to the water ad swam around it to begin foraging again.
We watched the bear for a long time until he turned and headed into the forest. Light level was low and we weren't terrifically close most of the time so it was difficult to get good shots.
We headed up to a cove where we transferred to the Zodiac to get closer to the shore and spotted a mother grizzly and cub were just disappearing into the forest. Back on the boat we had a sandwich lunch before getting back on the Zodiac and heading for the estuary.
Renée and Daryl guided us deep into the sedge, Renée in her waders pulling the boat, Daryl guiding from behind. We'd gone about as far as we could, it was very peaceful, when a female grizzly came out of the forest, dug around a bit, then her cub followed.
The cub copied its mother who was digging for roots and tubers - they also eat the sedge.
Suddenly the mother bear became very wary, completely still and staring into the forest.
Then she reared up onto her hind legs, keeping her cub behind her. Something had obviously spooked her. She then came along the edge of the channel that we were in, her cub following.
Out from the forest behind her came a large black grizzly. He didn't seem to be pursuing them, but this was obviously what had spooked her. She would be extremely protective of her cub in this situation as male grizzlies sometimes kill and eat cubs.
The male grizzly stayed near the edge of the forest and the female and cub continued to move towards us until they were less than three metres away. They seemed to know we were there, and Daryl was ready with the bear spray if necessary, but the mother bear must have decided that we weren't a threat and continued to forage in front of us for a while before turning and ambling off into the forest, digging here and there, with her cub in tow.
An amazing experience to be so close to these wonderful creatures in their natural habitat, not viewing them from platforms as happens in many other bear habitats, but relying on the expertise of our guides to know where to look and how to behave to give us such an incredible encounter.
During the course of the day we also saw Dall's porpoises, sea lions, Harbour seals and a beautiful bright blue Stellar's Jay.
Daryl also took us to see pictographs on cliffs well above the water. I don't know how old they are but they depict sailing ships and a stagecoach among other things.
