Canada wildlife holiday to Grizzly Bear Lodge: Why it is so much better than Knight Inlet Lodge
Published on: July 15, 2021
Knight Inlet is the most famous grizzly bear viewing location in Canada, and one of the best places in Canada to see grizzly bears fishing for salmon. Only two Canadian wildlife lodges have access to the wooden elevated viewing platform, making it a very exclusive experience for lucky visitors. One is the world famous Knight Inlet lodge and the second is the less well known but more impressive, Grizzly Bear Lodge. This blog will explain why a fly-in Grizzly Bear Lodge safari starting in Campbell River is far superior than a stay at Knight Inlet Lodge. We first visited Grizzly Bear Lodge way back in 2003 and have been creating bespoke Canada wildlife holidays for more than 20 years.
Why Grizzly Bear Lodge trumps Knight Inlet Lodge?
The thing we really like about Grizzly Bear Lodge is that they utilise a fleet of 4 small 3-seat motorboats to transport guests on bear and whale watching excursions which means that couples ‘often’ get a private boat and guide. This fits our philosophy of personal service and intimate experience, and a smaller vessel is also less intrusive and Orcas will often come closer. Bear viewing takes place at Glendale Cove – the same location used by Knight Inlet Lodge – which is a scenic 1 hour boat ride from the lodge. What the lodge loses in proximity to Glendale Cove, where Knight Inlet Lodge is situated, it gains by being an hour closer to Johnstone Strait, core habitat of the 16 resident Orca pods that frequent British Columbia’s coastal waters. Grizzly Bear Lodge is often rated by our clients as one of the best wildlife lodges in Canada and featured prominently in our list of the best Canada wildlife holidays.
How many guests stay at Grizzly Bear Lodge compared to Knight Inlet?
Because Grizzly Bear Lodge only has 6 rooms, the maximum number of guests at any one time is 12, whereas for the much larger and more commercial Knight Inlet Lodge you will find more than 30 guests. In general, when it comes to accommodation for our Canada wildlife holidays, Wildlife Trails clients want us to discover the smaller hidden gems with less visitors and a stunning location and Grizzly Bear Lodge very much fulfills that criteria. The advantages of a lodge catering to a smaller number of guests manifests in many ways. Firstly, the owners and guides have more time to interact with you and explain the activities you will be doing. There is more of a family feeling at dinner with the small number of guests and for each activity you will only have a few other guests with you and the guide on the bear and whale watching tours which depart from the lodge. There is even the possibility of booking the entire lodge for a larger family travelling together or a group of friends.
What to expect from a visit to Grizzly Bear Lodge
Firstly, if the weather is kind, on the day you fly in to Minstrel Island where the lodge is located you are going to enjoy a stunning floatplane journey, with the possibility of seeing whales like Humpbacks from the air. A floatplane journey in Canada or Alaska is one of the signature experiences and is sure to get your Canada wildlife tour off to a thrilling start. Landing on the water surrounding by stunning scenery and then being dropped off at the jetty by the lodge will fill you with excitment and anticpation.
Most of our clients stay at Grizzly Bear Lodge for 4 nights which permits two visits to the world famous Knight Inlet bear viewing stands, one full day Orca whale watching tour with packed lunch in Johnstone Strait and a visit to a different ‘Wild River’, where both grizzly and black bears can be viewed in close proximity.
Not everyone knows that the Knight Inlet bear viewing stands is a man made salmon weir/passage that then encouraged brown bears to take advantage of for plucking salmon out of the water. The bears congregate in this area to fish for salmon and occasionally have ‘play flights’, or more common, displays of aggressive postering, to dertermine which male bear has the best position on the river. You can observe the amazing interaction between these normally solitary animals as they gather in groups of sometimes ten or more bears. Generally during the salmon season the area around the raised wooden viewing platform is dominated by male bears, due to the fact they pose a risk to the spring cubs of the female bears; who are just as hungry as the males but need to be very cautious around them.
What weather to expect and what gear do I need?
For the first ten years of running Wildlife Trails I lived and worked in the western Lake District of the UK and was a keen fell walker and wild camper. I often tell our clients heading to the west coast of British Colombia, in particular, Vancouver Island, to expect similar weather to the Lake District in summer. High chance of the odd heavy shower which can also mean a significant drop in temperature. Add to that the fact that many bear viewing tours in Canada and whale watching trips involve several hours out on the open water and this adds to the cooling effect felt by passengers.
So a layered approach is key with both windproof jackets and trousers as the outside barrier and for those who feel the cold, or have circulation issues, then you need to bring thermal hats and gloves. If the wind drops and the sun is shining you can quickly find yourselves in shorts and teeshirts, but always best to be prepared for all types of weather.
Due to safety regulations many of the boat operators will provide you with full floater suits before you depart from the jetty. Not only are they fully windproof, they also are very warm, so you will only need a single base layer underneath these suits, or you will find yourselves ‘cooking’ from the inside.
Best time to visit Canada for grizzly bears at Knight Inlet
During the autumn salmon season (late August through to mid-October) grizzly bear viewing is conducted from two elevated viewing platforms on the banks of a salmon spawning channel, and sessions are limited to 2 hours and 6 people per platform to minimise disturbance to the bears. It is however a very action packed 2 hours with rarely a moment when there aren’t multiple bears close to the platforms. From my experience (I have visited Knight Inlet many times) you often see more bears in 2 hours at Knight Inlet than you would in 2 days in most other grizzly bear locations in British Columbia.
Grizzly Bear Lodge is open from May each year to coincide with the spring grizzly bear viewing which peaks during the months of May and June. At this time of the year the bears take advantage of the nutritious sedge grasses which grow in abundance around the many river estuaries and the mode of bear viewing in Knight Inlet changes. Instead of visiting the famous Knight Inlet stands, visitors will enjoy gentle rides in a boat skiff designed to move quietly through the water and not disturb the brown bears feeding on the shoreline. Although black bears are out competed by brown bears in the areas close to Grizzly Bear Lodge, you can still sometimes seem them in the tidal zone scavenging for crustaceans. Spring bear viewing in Knight Inlet is the best time to see grizzly bears and cubs feeding and playing together, as the population of resident grizzlies is more spread out and the spring cubs are less likely to be threatened by adult grizzly bears; who would dominate a spawning salmon river.
What other wildlife will I see at Grizzly Bear Lodge?
The sheer diversity of marine and terrestrial wildlife off the western coast of British Colombia is remarkable and given the location of the Canadian wilderness lodges we promote and the type of activities they provide, you are sure to see a lot of different species during your stay. When it comes to marine wildlife in the waters off BC, there are 25 species of whales and 5 species of seals. The common whale species youn will see are, Humpbacks, Minke, Gray, Orcas and Fin. Harbour Seals are easy to see and you may be lucky enough to encounter Northern Elephant Seals. A crowd favourite are sea otters and in some areas they can be seen far offshore in ‘raft’s. Although a little shy and much smaller than the common White-sided Pacific Dolphins, you may also catch a glimpse of a harbor porpoise.
Back on land you have a great chance to see both brown and black bears, and although rare, both Vancouver Island and other coastal areas in western BC have healthy populations of Cougars. These beautiful big cats specialise in hunting the substantial deer population, of which you may see black-tailed, white-tailed and mule deer.
How global warming has affected the seasonality of Knight Inlet Grizzly Bear viewing
If you think about the grizzly bear viewing at Knight Inlet during the salmon season as two distinct ‘movements’, we can look at how a change of global weather will affect the movement of these millions of salmon – not just one species, but actually 5 different salmon varieties – and thus affect how Apex predators like Grizzly Bears are affected.
Firstly, there is their return from the open Pacific Ocean to the rivers where they were born several years earlier. In this stage we are still not sure how warmer ocean waters are affecting mortality rates of the salmon and thus reducing the number which arrive in the river estuaries waiting to make the final ardous swim up the rivers. The second stage is that ‘battle’ against the currents and salmon ‘leaps’ up the waterfalls to reach their spawning grounds.
What is clear from both our own and our clients Canada wildlife holidays over the last 10 years or so is that less rainfall and hotter temperatures have made it more difficult for the salmon to reach their spawning grounds and sometimes you can clearly see thousands of salmon effectively ‘stuck’ in the estuaries waiting for the river levels to be high enough for them to continue their epic migration.
Grizzly Bear Lodge Knight Inlet. How do I plan my trip?
There are two possible ways to visit Grizzly Bear Lodge. Many of our clients like to take the car ferry between Vancouver and Nanaimo and then drive 2 hours north to the coastal town of Campbell River. There are many excellent grizzly bear tours which operate out of Campbell River, but most of these involved just day tours by boat and the majority visit Bute Inlet; not Knight Inlet. One of the most magical and true Canadian wilderness experiences you can have, is to arrive at a remote wildlife lodge by floatplane; and that is exactly what is included as part of a stay at Grizzly Bear Lodge. It is easy enough to leave your rental car at a Campbell River hotel for a few nights and take a taxi to the floatplane jetty.
Another way to get to Grizzly Bear Lodge is to fly all the way from Vancouver, making use of airlines using the south terminal at Vancouver to reach Campbell River airport and then connect with the floatplane transfer. This means no driving on your bear watching tour of Canada and a very relaxed approach to your bear safari at Grizzly Bear Lodge.
We have an amazing relationship with this beautiful lodge at Knight Inlet, which we have developed over 20 years. It is fair to say that Wildlife Trails guests are treated extra special by the passionate owners and we have some of the best rates on the market. So why not check our Grizzly Bear Lodge safari and enjoy one of the best Canada wildlife holidays out there.
