There’s lots to see and do right here at the lodge. Some of the best wildlife viewing opportunities are right outside your window. The trip here on the float plane is a scenic one with lot’s of great photo opportunities.
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These two photos show the massive amount of driftwood in the water last summer after the slides up Knight Inlet. One night after a three-month rainless period there were heavy rains and over a dozen slides that stripped mountainsides down to bare rock. The result is that it suddenly took up to two hours to make an hour and fifteen-minute trip to view grizzly bears. There was never any danger of large waves because of the slide as Knight Inlet is close to 145 km (90 miles) long and in places over a mile wide and even the shore opposite the slides looked normal in the morning. The drift covered the beaches for months and can be seen in yesterday’s posting.
Bald eagles can be viewed from the front deck of the lodge on Minstrel Island as they fly from the nest behind the lodge to their fishing areas. On all the day trips for the whale watching safari, grizzly bear tours and wild river trips eagles are plentiful. The hardest part for a good bald eagle picture is to have the eagle so it is not “sky lined”. They need a dark background to set off their white head as shown in this photo. Also to note is the spread wings as it enjoys the sun while drying after the summer’s morning fog.
The first day / evening in the lodge involves an hour plus wildlife tour. This may occur before or after dinner depending on the height of the tide as it is hard to find a black bear on the beach if there is no beach. It is a local tour that familiarizes guests with the boats, the guides and the area around the lodge. The black bear that frequent the shore are less than half the size of the grizzlies mainly because they do not have access to the salmon rivers, which are controlled by the grizzlies. The best way to judge if the black bear is a big bear is the size of its ears in relation to the head. Small Bears: Will have a small, narrow head, almost dog like. Their ears will appear to be much larger and defined. Almost like “Mickey Mouse” is a common description. Big Bears: Will have a very large, blocky looking head. Their ears will look small, and almost off to the side of their skull a little.
James and Wendy Kastelein of Australia provide the photo taken on the evening black bear tour. The first evening in Grizzly Bear Lodge on Minstrel Island involves an evening boat ride to look for wildlife. Top on the list is a black bear. On this evening the Kasteleins obtained several good photos as this bear stayed on the beach ignoring us for food. Although there is not much boat traffic in the area the bears accept boats as part of their environment and as long as the boaters are not aggressive the bears are good for repeated viewing.
Ingo and his crew of four in the back row are ready for their morning tour. The floater suits provided by Grizzly Bear Lodge is a must for the day’s wildlife viewing. We are normally on the water by 8:00 and it can be cool if you are not used to the dampness of a morning boat ride. The morning’s overcast burns off before noon and that is about the same time the suits start to be removed. Layering is the best way to be prepared for the day’s tours because a running boat is always cooler than when sitting in the sun watching wildlife such as grizzly bears, whales and orca.
Although the great blue heron is common in the coastal water of British Columbia it does not mean it does not make a good photo opportunity. Most guest somewhere in their hundreds or thousands of photos taken while on tour from the lodge will have at least one photo of a heron. In this case the watercolour is as important as the heron.
From a guides perspective this is a good view of a seaplane at the dock of Grizzly Bear Lodge. The first reason would be that we are on the water and not carrying luggage or boxes of food up to the lodge. The second is that if we were on the dock carrying luggage it is a high tide. The float is about the same level as the shore and this makes the trips allot easier. The summer tides can be four or five meters (yards) in height and this makes for a steep ramp up to land level. The flight to the lodge from Campbell River takes about forty-five minutes and flies over some great coastal scenery so be sure to have your camera at hand and not stowed in your suitcase.
As this photo taken, on a whale watching tour shows orca has a very distinctive coloring. While these markings are beautiful, they do have a very important purpose. The quote from “The Orca Ocean” website is a good explanation. “The first thing the orca’s markings do is to help break up their shape in the water. This is known as Disruptive Coloring. Close up the orca is quite visible in the water. However, when the orca gets further away, the white spots help to make the orca look like a collection of smaller animals, thus fooling their prey. Another bit in fooling their prey the eye patch. Animals that are being attack will instinctively go for the eyes. Sharks protect their eyes from seals and sea lions with membranes that come up and cover the eye. Orcas, however, have the large eye patch that the prey will focus on and therefore leave the actual eye unharmed. The other purposes the coloring on a killer whale is what is known as Counter Shading. Counter shading is a form of camouflage. What it does is simple: When an orca is swimming above their prey and the prey looks up the orca’s white patches will blend in with the light shinning down from the surface. Aforesaid, the black patches that remain fool the prey in to believing the orca is a collection of smaller animals. The counter shading also works when the orca is swimming below the prey. The animal will look down and see only hints of white and a black back that blends with the dark waters.”
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Guests arrive by seaplane from Campbell River on Vancouver Island. The floatplane ride takes about forty-five minutes and passes over many small islands, bays and inlets. For many guest it is their first ride in a small plane and they may be a little nervous but in all my years on the coast any accidents and they are rare occur due to winter weather. It is comforting to know that “seaplanes” land on water and that is every where on the coast while the larger planes that you use it come to British Columbia require large airports and they are less common than all the water under a seaplane. Lynn Morris from the Great Britain provides these photos of her flight.
Interest like beauty is in the eye of the “beholder”. Many guests, including James, take pictures of these banana slugs, which are often bright yellow (giving rise to the banana name) although they may also be green, brown, or white. Some slugs have black spots which may be so extensive as to make the animal look almost solid black. The Pacific banana slug is the second-largest species of terrestrial slug in the world, growing up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) long, and weights of 115 grams (4.1 ounces). Banana slugs can move at 6 1⁄2 inches (17 cm) per minute.
That’s a wrap on the 2026 season at Sailcone’s Grizzly Bear Lodge. It has been an amazing year. We welcomed guests from all over the world and witnessed one of the best salmon runs in decades.
I would like to thank our crew who looked after our guests from May until October. We are very fortunate that they are all planning on returning next season.
On the wildlife side it was truly an epic year. We saw a number of bears with new cubs and had an amazing salmon run. With these conditions the survival rate for these cubs is high. On the water the Humpbacks were abundant, with a large numbers hanging out in Knight Inlet in the early season and lots in our whale watching area throughout the year. The resident Orca were abundant and we also had a lot of Biggs Orca sightings.
For 2027 we are continuing to refresh the rooms, with new ceilings and paint. We will also have our floating sauna operational for the start of the season. More information on that to come.
Thank you again to everyone who visited us in 2026, to our staff and our travel partners. We are booking quickly for 2027 so if you want to visit us next season inquire soon.
