The Lodge

All about Sailcone’s Grizzly Bear Lodge

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.

Evening black bear tour

Black Bear cubOn the first evening at the lodge, if the permits, you set out on a short local trip to view Black Bear feeding on the beach. The “tide permits” is important because you need a low tide to have a beach to give the black bears some palace to turn over rocks to look for high protein food made up of crab, clams, muscles, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. The coastal black bears are small compared to the grizzlies, as they do not have access to the salmon rivers because of the grizzlies.  The bears only grow to the size that access to food permits the more protein rich the food the larger the bear. The first year cubs follow their mother closely and take clues from them to determine what is “good food”.

 

Early morning at Grizzly Bear Lodge

From the Lodge's lawnEarly morning (6:30 a.m.) from the front yard of the lodge, early depending on which time zone you just arrived from, provides some great photo opportunities.  It is not uncommon to hear guest moving about the lodge before we (the guides) rise and shine.  This sunrise is reasonably common, as our mornings are frequently overcast.  The overcast is due to the wind funnel nature of Knight Inlet, which draws in clouds over night. The good news is that most days they are gone by noon.

 

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Trapper Rick's fishingGuest showing salmonAfter catching the pink salmon in the river at Trapper Rick’s it is a short journey to thinking of a fishing trip to the lodge and catching the larger Chinook salmon.  Grizzly Bear Lodge has a partner website under “Sailcone Wilderness Fishing Lodge” for guests interested in a few days fishing or guest who salmon fish while their spouses enjoy the wildlife viewing. In this case a guide had a day off and went salmon fishing and his catch became a photo opportunity for the guests.

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Dinner tablemain courseThe guests and guides enjoy a meal around the large oak table, which seats ten. Starting with soup or salad followed by the main course, which in this case is salmon. Dinners are a lively time with discussions and questions about the day’s activities, what is on for tomorrow and any other topic one can imagine. One comment that is often heard is all we seem to do is eat (breakfast), view wildlife, eat (picnic), view wildlife, and eat (dinner). Yes and the answer is that is why we try to keep you luggage to 20 pounds because that is how much weight you could gain and we do not want to overload the plane on the way out. After eating the discussion continues around the table or moves to the “living room” and often involves the exchange of email addresses and the promise to send pictures.

 

 

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morning dressblack bear

The lodge normally accommodates eight guests. This means that you interact with the other guests and the staff on a full time basis unless you prefer the privacy of your room. The mornings on the water are be cool so we provide the “floater suites” to keep you warm. They are your “Personal Floatation Device” and even if you choose not to wear them they need to be with you in the boat.  After snack time the guides will bring out the suited to make sure you have one that fits this taken care of it is time for your first “quest” for wildlife. The first evening we do a tour looking for black bear and eagles in the vicinity of the lodge, normally an hour or so before or after dinner depending on the tide.  The black bears are on the beach looking for food so we need a reasonably low tide to provide the beach. If we don’t have success on the first evening most days we find black bears while on a grizzly or whale tour. This evening was successful.

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Lodge from dockFresh crabOn your arrival your first view of the lodge is from the dock.  Guests are shown their rooms and then return to the front deck for a “arrival snack” of cheese, crackers, and fresh caught dungeness crab or prawns (in this case both).  This is to get up your appetite for dinner in about two of three hours. Once you have had time to eat or while we have a captive audience all in one place someone will explain about the night lights as we are on a generator, showers, hottub, daily schedule (very flexible) and answer any questions.

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Airpalne Campbell RiverSeaplane arriving at lodgeThe first photo is a view of the departure dock in Campbell River. Guests leave Campbell River on Vancouver Island once they all arrive and their luggage (any extra room on the plane is filled with food for the lodge) is loaded. Departure by 3:00 or earlier is possible.  The flight to the lodge is approximately forty-five minutes and be sure you have your camera ready, as there are some great photo opportunities over the coastal inlets and mountains.  Once you arrive there is about thirty minutes of controlled chaos.  Often there are eight guest coming and eight guests departing.  The arriving guests want to hear for the departing guests how their trip was to gage their chance of success and normally the departing guests want to stretch their stay as long as possible so are glad to talk. Within all this we need to exchange luggage on the plane, incoming for out going, as well as unload any food we managed to get on board. The high tide provides a level ramp and makes us all happy when we carry luggage and food boxes to the lodge.

 

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Five Guys

This is the story of four great guys, “the team consisting of the 4 Austrians Ingo, Sigurd, Walter and Heinz”. They say it best in their own words: “Please find below as required some fotos from our stay in your lodge in August this year. It gave us great moments and unique memories of a fantastic fauna in overwhelming nature.I hope you can use it in your website and show it to guests who are interested what their stay in the lodge would be all about. We appreciated very much the whole setup, means the lodge, the trips, the food and all the care you and your team provided for us.All in all it was a very successful choice to book your program and we can only highly recommend it to all who love to explore nature and stay in a lodge which is very small (only 8 guests at a time) and allows therefore very personal but professional care.Thanks again for everything and best regards to everybody there.The team consisting of the 4 Austrians Ingo, Sigurd, Walter and Heinz”

Not sedge grass

The previous day’s blog show the food grizzly bears eat in the spring.  Our guests frequently comment on the quality and quantity of good food provided for meals.  From the seafood dinners served by your guides (we are versatile employees) to the self-serve picnic lunches. Although our “wilderness lodge” requires a floatplane flight from Campbell River it does not mean we “rough-it” for meals.

 

Pictures that interest Grizzly Bear Lodge’s guests

Floatplane over Vancouver Island

Banana slugGrizzly Bear Lodge is a remote lodge meaning arrival is by floatplane from Campbell River on Vancouver Island.  This is another great photo opportunity as shown by this picture from guest James O’Donoghue. The forty-five minute flight passes over the mostly uninhabited coast except for the fish farm and logging camps. According to the website “Creation Wiki”: “The Banana slug is the 2nd largest slug in the world – the largest in North America. Banana slugs can grow all the way up to 25cm (10inches) in length.” The lodge is located in the southern portion of BC’s the Great Bear Rainforest and a rainforest does encourage everything to grow “big”.