Where to see bears in Canada: How to photograph all three native species of bears
Published on: January 24, 2025
A Canada wildlife tour with Wildlife Trails gives you the chance to see all three native species of North American bears, the Black Bear, the Grizzly Bear (also known as a Brown Bear) and the Polar bear. Although most of our clients will focus their trip on just one or two species. In the province of British Colombia there are multiple places to see Black and Brown Bears, whereas if you head over to Manitoba in the autumn months you have a chance of Black Bears and Polar Bears – although this very much depends on the timing of your trip which our experts will advise you on. One of our signature Canada wildlife holidays we developed in the early 2000’s, was the chance to see all three species in the same two week trip.
Bear watching on Vancouver Island. A great fit for Independent Travellers.
Our North American operations manager, James Manson, lived on Vancouver Island for many years until he moved to Toronto, so we had a perfect person in place to travel all across the island and find Wildlife Trails and our clients the best bear watching tours on Vancouver Island. It is important to note that there are no grizzly bears on Vancouver Island itself, there are just coastal communities like Campbell River, Telegraph Cove and Port Hardy where you can either take a boat to see grizzly bears in the wild. These bear safaris are normally conducted in small boats where you view and photograph bears in the river estuaries, or you are transferred to bear viewing platforms where you can watch bears catching salmon in the rivers.
Bear viewing on Vancouver Island works really well for independent travellers who are happy to drive on the island – it’s fairly stress free – and connect the two very different coastlines which offer the chance to see different marine and terrestrial wildlife. The east coast faces the inlet dotted western shoreline of British Colombia and this is where all the Vancouver Island grizzly bear watching companies are based. Whereas the coastal communities of Tofino and Ucluelet on the Pacific Coast offer great Zodiac boat based safaris for black bear watching, as well as the chance to see Gray Whales and Humpback Whales.
Bear watching Campbell River: Why its a great choice for superb grizzly bear viewing
There are a lot of good reasons for you to choose Campbell River as you main town to base yourself for your bear watching in Vancouver Island. There are several excellent small boat operators with offices in the Campbell River harbour. They have top notch government regulated safety equipment and experienced boat captains, with a maximum of 12 passengers – who they will take to the bear viewing stands in locations such as Bute and Toba Inlet. These are full day boat safaris and you will probably spend around 4 hours on the water (in total) with the 2 hour return transfers between Campbell River and the ‘jumping off point’ at the Inlet.
After a amazing two-hour boat ride through beautiful Toba Inlet, your expert guides unite with Klahoose First Nation hosts at the head of the Inlet, giving you a warm Coast Salish welcome. You will then drive up the valley in a 4X4 vehicle to the famous bear viewing platforms, where you’ll have the privilege of watcing the Toba Inlet Grizzly Bears doing what they do best in the Autumn; which is feasting on the annual return of salmon to maximise their weight gain before the onset of winter.
Telegraph Cove bear watching
This has been our go to place for estuary grizzly bear viewing since 2003 as not only does it give you ‘fast access’ to the world famous Knight Inlet, it is also pretty much opposite Johnstone Strait, which is one of the best places in the world to go whale watching for Orcas. There are numerous resident pods of Orcas in Johnstone Strait so you have the be unlucky not to see them on the safaris out of Telegraph Cove.
There is also a well respected Telegraph Cove bear watching operator who specialise in estuary bear viewing in Knight Inlet and some of our clients have been luckuy enough to see 10+ brown bears in the spring bear viewing season that starts in late May and continues into June. If your Vancouver Island wildlife holiday is scheduled for late August/September then you are best advised to stay in or near Campbell River and go with one of the local operators to the grizzly bear viewing stands, as this is the time when the returning salmon looking to spawn will move up the rivers and the bears will congregate in these areas to fatten themselves up for the winter.
Fire at Telegraph Cove Marina: Important Update
Very sadly, in early January 2025, there was a devasting fire at the historic harbour and boardwalk which Telegraph Cove is famous for, and as a result about a third of the historic pier was destroyed, including the he Old Saltery Pub, Killer Whale Cafe, Wastell Manor heritage house and the Prince of Whales whale-watching office. This is the same pier where Telegraph Cove bear watching and whale watching operators depart from, although they will have the possibility of setting up a new operation out of other nearby harbours and jetties. It is too early yet to say how this is going to affect the Telegraph Cove bear watching season in 2025 but if you are looking to book with one of those companies do please double check how their operation will be run this year.
Port McNeill Bear Watching: A great alternative for bears and whales
Port McNeill is a larger town than Telegraph Cove located just 20 minutes further up the north east coast, so there is a greater choice of accommodation options for both self drivers, motor home owners and campers. There are also two highly respected wildlife operators who launch their tours from this town. One of them is a specialist in bear watching at Port Hardy and will give you a great chance to see grizzly bears in the wild.
Here at Wildlife Trails we always try to work with the local indiginous communities who have called this part of Western Canada home for thousands of years. For our Port McNeill bear watching operator they are owned by people of the Kwakwaka’wakw and you will have the privilage of bear watching in the Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw Territory, also known as the Broughton Archipelago and the Great Bear Rainforest in Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The second specialist operator uses state of the art Titan Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats with shock absorbing seats to provide a level of comfort on the water that few other Vancouver Island whale watching companies can match. To add to their guests’ comfort, they provide individual two piece flotation suits, as well as thermal hats and binoculars on all of their tours. The two piece suits are designed to be much easier to get in and out of than the one-piece suits, which are used by most other whale watching companies.
The key species you will see on this half-day Port Hardy whale watching tour are humpback whales, sea otters, Dall’s porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphins, orcas, Steller sea lions, bald eagles, as well as a diverse selection of resident seabirds.
Tofino Black Bear Watching: Why Tofino works for Hip Wildlife Lovers
Tofino is one of the coolest, someone say funkiest, towns in the whole of Vancouver Island and if you are looking to travel in the peak months of August through to September please secure your Tofino accommodation as soon as possible. We really love this coastal town and despite the large number of visitors which come here every summer, it is very easy to get away from the crowds and to explore some section of the famous Wild Pacific Coast trail.
Most of our clients love to stay just outside town in a waterfront condo with incredible views of the many forested islands in Clayoquot Sound and a few years back some of them ‘lucked out’ with amazing views through their scopes of a pack of Wolves swimming between the islands. The islands have deer populations on them, so that is probably what these wolves would have been hunting.
We have worked with the same Tofino black bear viewing company since 2003 and most of our clients prefer their 12 seater boats which provide a more intimate connection with not just the Black Bears, but also different whale species you might observe as you cruise between the islands. They always respect the distance between the bear and the boat, but those with zoom cameras will get some great photos of the Black Bears on the shoreline. They are often observed turning over rocks and small boulders to feed on Crustaceans
Want a Tofino whale watching tour with limited passengers?
As you will see from many photos and videos of whale watching around Vancouver Island the pack them in a large boat model with up to 100 passengers is popular amongst the larger companies. This is something neither Wildlife Trails or our clients want, so when we lived on Vancouver Island we made sure to form relationships with the smaller operators that owned either 12 passenger Zodiac rib style boat, or small motor cruisers that would take a similar number. This is true of all our Vancouver Island wildlife holidays and for our Tofino whale watching tours it has been a great success. Although there is limited room in the Zodiacs (not great for large camera bags to be honest) you have a much more intimate connection with the wildlife when you are viewing them. When a huge Humpback spy hops or tail flukes just 50 metres from your boat, you really feel the power of nature and have a front seat to witness iconic marine species like Gray Whales and Orcas.
Best time to see Polar Bears in Churchill
We have been travelling to Churchill polar bear watching since 2003 when we travelled by train to this amazing frontier town. Because of its unique geography, the location of the Churchill River which pours ice into the Hudson Bay, and the counter clockwise currents in the bay, the ice starts to form in Churchill before any other location, and this is what attracts the polar bears in their hundreds.
For our famous ‘3 bears tours’, timing is everything, as Black Bears and Grizzly Bears will start to hibernate towards the end of October, although we are seeing some changes due to global warming and food resources for the bears being available longer. Generally we like to finish our Vancouver Island bear watching by the middle of October to avoid heaby rain which will wash all the salmon out of the river systems and fly over to the capital of Manitoba, Winnipeg. From here we will take the train or generally a flight to Churchill, where we will stay for several nights and do a combination of Churchill Tundra Buggy tours, as well as 4X4 tours.
The Tundra Buggy tours because of their unique design let you get up close and personal with some of the polar bears from the Churchill Bay population of around 600. However, each bear has its own personality, some are shy and will keep a constant distance from the Buggies, whereas others, especially mothers with older cubs will come right up under the vehicle and sniff the feet of tourists standing out on the meshed platform.
Our favourite is the 4X4 tours as we are allowed – with our qualified bear monitors – to get out of the vehicle and photograph polar bears on foot, which gives a whole new dimension to your photography and let’s you get those eye level shots that we all want. We also had some great encounters with Red Fox and Arctic Hares and with just 4 people in each vehicle, it was a more intimate connection compared to the crowded Tundra Buggy.
