Grizzly Bear Tours – Where, When and Why?
Published on: July 15, 2021
The Great Bear Stakeout: Hotspots for Grizzly Bear Tours and Grizzly Bear Viewing on your Canada wildlife holiday.
The power and beauty of Grizzly Bears have fascinated humans for thousands of years. Long before European settlers started to plunder the impossibly rich wildlife resources of North America, the indigenous people living there in harmony with nature, carved their noble features into their beautiful Totem poles. Grizzly Bears continue to fascinate us today, as can be seen from the many wildlife documentaries that feature this sub-species of the Brown Bear (Ursus Arctos) – One of our personal favourites was ‘the Great Bear Stakeout’ narrated by the irrepressible Billy Connolly many years ago as he journeyed through Canada.
Knight Inlet Grizzly Bear viewing and Bella Coola Grizzly tours: Which is best for you?
Wildlife Trails first went on a Grizzly Bear Tour back in 2003 first visiting Knight Inlet; a famous location for Grizzly Bear viewing in an inlet opposite Vancouver Island, and then onto the picteresque Bella Coola valley – an undiscovered gem back in 2003 – that went on to became one of our most popular Grizzly Bear tours; due to the amazing private river drifts and expert guided walking safaris where Grizzly Bears were seen up close and personal.
Knight Inlet is amazing for wildlife photographers looking for multiple bears feeding on dying spawning salmon and looking to take action shots of bears squabbling over the vast shoals of salmon returning to the rivers they were born in. In good years you can see 10+ bears at the viewing stands and during the two hours you are permitted to be there you will have the opportunity for some amazing shots of Grizzly Bears catching the salmon. Because these are spawning fish and starting to lose condition it is mainly action shots of bears plucking the salmon from the waters, or ‘fighting’ other bears over the larger fish. What makes this Grizzly Bear tour even more exciting is the fact that our 4 night stay at Grizzly Bear Lodge gives you two opportunities to visit the viewing platforms, as we as a chance to photograph Orcas in world famous Johnstone Strait.
The best time to see bears in Canada at Knight Inlet is the month of September. Although the viewing platforms at Knight Inlet open in late August we have observed in the kast 20 years the main salmon runs starting later. There are still a lot of other environmental factors to consider which will affect the number of fish returning up the river. Some years there is insufficient rainfall and this means the salmon cannot get upstream to their spawning ground and that will affect bear numbers. Overall we plan our grizzly bear tours to Knight Inlet for September into the first week of October and that approach has been successful for our clients.
Wildlife purists who visit Knight Inlet for their Canada wildlife tours can feel a little detached from the action, as you are looking down on the bears from a man made viewing platform. For this type of client Bella Coola ticks all the boxes, as slowly drifting down the river in a traditional rowing boat, with no engine noise, while photographing Grizzly Bears fishing for salmon has to be one of the most natural and authentic Grizzly Bear tours in North America. You really are at ‘bear eye level’ with this gentle approach to bear viewing in Canada and there is an opportunity to get some awesome low level shots of the bears as you gently drift by.
Allan’s top tips
We always encourage our clients to stay the full 4 nights at Grizzly Bear Lodge as not only does that give you the chance to go bear viewing at Knight Inlet twice during your stay, you also have one day on a different ‘Wild River’ with a local guide and a chance to see both black and grizzly bears. You are also sure to enjoy your full day Orca whale watching trip with just a couple of other passangers in your boat.
Great Bear Lodge or Khutzeymateen: Science verses Raw Nature
During our second major reccie trip to Canada in 2004 we personally checked out three new locations for our bespoke Grizzly Bear tours. The first one involved a spectacular floatplane transfer from Port Hardy to the Great Bear Lodge. This lodge run by a biologist with a masters, adopts a more scientific and intensive approach to Grizzly Bear viewing, involving visits to multiple hides located at prime spots and longer days in the field – a great option for full on wildlife enthusiasts and keen photographers.
Great Bear Lodge is located on the native lands of the Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw Nation and within the rich and dynamic part of the central coast of British Colombia called the Great Bear Rainforest. Here there are many apex predators such as Grizzly Bears, Black Bears, Spirit Bears, Wolves, Orcas and Bald Eagles. The lodge has a great setup for photographers and uses a combination of boat based grizzly bear viewing and photography from hides which have been chosen for the density of bears and good open views to maximise your images.
Northern BC draws adventerous travellers and the main ‘inward’ hub is the coastal city of Prince Rupert which can be reached by both plane and boat. This is a great town to start your Canada wildlife holiday, as there is some fantastic whale watching to be had just a few miles off the coast. Prince Rupert whale watching gives you a chance to see Humpback Whales, Gray Whales, Dolphins and Harbour Porpoises.
Prince Rupert is where we took a floatplane flight from to reach the beautiful Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, the only wildlife preserve specifically set up for the protection of Grizzly Bears in Canada. This proved to be a totally authentic wilderness experience as we camped on a floating dock in an idyllic location just outside the reserve boundaries. Daily boat safaris take you out to observe either Grizzly Bears feeding on sedge grasses, or later in August/September gorging themselves on the salmon run.
Khutzeymateen wilderness lodge operates respectfully within the ancestral lands of the Gitsi’is Tribe of Lax Kw’alaams and Matlakatla, Tsmishian Nation’s Traditional Territory. You will enjoy a stunning floatplane journey and then land next to the ‘floating lodge’, where there are only 8 double rooms, each with a stunning ocean and mountain views in this pristine coastal habitat.
A 24 foot long covered Zodiac boat allows access into the shallow inlet and coastal fjords where some of the best grizzly bear viewing is. They work with the flow and ebb of the local tides to see a variety of wildlife, including Grizzly Bears, Bald Eagles, Humpbacks and if you are extremely lucky maybe even Wolves.
Kitimat Bears: Go wild in the Valley
The third and final option took Wildlife Trails up to the Kitimat Valley where a top notch local operator conducts very small scale bear viewing (max 4 people) by boat in Spring, or on foot in Summer & Fall. It’s a rarely visited wilderness area and the bears here are far less habituated than in other areas where bear viewing takes place, so the guides have developed a real “back to nature” approach which relies on camouflage, stealth, patience, and venturing into seemingly inaccessible wilderness areas.
Wildlife Trails visits Canada on a regular basis and our Canada Operations Manager lived on Vancouver Island for many years. With this background we have developed deep, long term relationships with the local operators that has allowed our clients special access to prime wilderness areas. So as you sit back tonight and watch ‘the Great Bear Stakeout’, consider travelling to this country yourself and enjoying your very own Grizzly Bear tour hand crafted by our destination experts.
Alaska Bear tours: Where walking with wild bears is seen as normal
After multiple trips to Canada and enjoying some of the best Grizzly Bear viewing in North America we wondered if it was possible to take our Grizzly Bear tours to another level – then we disovered Alaska! Nowhere in the Northern Hemisphere can you come face to face with more and bigger brown bears, often at close range, than in Alaska’s legendary Katmai National Park. Two decades of carefully managed bear viewing here has produced a unique environment in which bears are incredibly tolerant of human observers, provided they conduct themselves in a predictable and non-intrusive manner, and can be safely viewed on foot for prolonged periods, often in close proximity. Anybody who watched the Great Bear Stakeout last night would have been amazed at how close the film crew got to the bears and how incredibly toelrant the bears were of their human observers; this is exactly the experience you would have if you visit Katmai National Park on your Grizzly Bear tour.
Alaska bear viewing: What makes is so special?
The beauty of Alaska is that there are multiple destinations to view Grizzly Bears and one of the most iconic is the famous Brooks Falls where many Grizzly Bears can be observed catching salmon at a beautiful waterfall. There are three viewing platforms at Brooks Falls; one overlooking a footbridge close to where the river empties into Brooks Lake, and two overlooking the falls. In September (unlike July) most of the action is at the footbridge which acts like a seine net in that it is clogged with spawned out salmon which of course attracts bears in large numbers. The abiding memory of our visit to Brooks Falls was looking out over the wide expanse of water either side of the foot bridge and counting no less than 24 bears in our field of vision, many of them sows with 2 or 3 cubs. Well that and the 5 sleeping bears we found blocking my path when we tried to hike to the upper falls platform!
Brooks Lodge Alaska: How and when to book it
Due to its huge popularity and unparralled bear viewing when the salmon run is strong booking a stay at Alaska Brooks Lodge is now managed via a lottery system and you need to apply in the month of December two years before your proposed visit. So this year for example, you would apply in December 2024 for a visit sometime from June to October 2026. The maximum stay at Brooks Lodge during the peak months of July and September is 3 nights. Given the number of people now applying for this lottery it may be better tactically to look at dates in August.
Another approach to consider, is to combine a fly-in Brooks Falls bear viewing trip from either Anchorage or Homer, with a stay at Katmai Wilderness Lodge. Unfortunately this lodge will be closed for maintenance for 2025 and 2026, but we would strongly recommend pre-booking through Wildlife Trails for the grand re-opening in 2027. Without a doubt the best feedback we receive for both our Alaska wildlife tours and Canada wildlife holidays is their stay at Katmai wilderness lodge, where as well as boat based grizzly bear photography you have the real chance to ‘walk with the giant bears’ of Katmai national park.
Face to face with the world largest bears on Kodiak Island
Another fantastic location for viewing Grizzly Bears is Kodiak Island, home to the largest Grizzly Bears on the planet. Although it is sad to report that bears are still hunted on Kodiak; unlike Kamtai where they have enjoyed full protection for more than 20 years. There are options to take fly-in bear tours to fantastic locations on Kodiak Island such as Lake Clark, where our clients have enjoyed superb sightings of both male Grizzlies and females with cubs. Here at Wildlife Trails we are always trying to make that connection, both to our clients but also to the local authorities, that these animals are worth far much more alive to the local communities than dead to some trophy hunter, and this is a much more sustainable way of generating money from visitors by booking an Alaska wildlife tour.
We look forward to welcoming you to Alaska and organising a very special Grizzly Bear safari for you and your loved ones, that will live long in the memory.
