n freshly caught giant Dungerese crabs and jumbo prawns, washed down with fine BC and international wines.
One brisk morning we stretch our sea legs following fresh wolf tracks along a deserted island’s sandy white beach and hike through old growth forest, where we’re careful to leave minimal traces of our passing. Another afternoon, we bless the ship at a thundering waterfall. This involves Captain Smith steering the Maple Leaf’s bowsprit right to the spray-soaked edge of one of the countless waterfalls lining the route. Just close enough, it turns out, for first mate Greg Shea to fill an outstretched tumbler with arguably the purest H2O on Earth.
Along the route we encounter few other traces of humanity until we pay a visit to Klemtu, an isolated Kitasoo and XaisXais First Nations village of 400 that’s only accessible by boat or plane. Adorned with the clan emblems of the eagle, wolf, killer whale and raven, Klemtu’s mammoth red cedar “Bighouse” hosts important cultural events – the naming of children, traditional potlaches and ceremonies to honour the deceased – that help to preserve Native culture all along this coastline.
Botany and cultural excursions aside, the most magnetic lure for most of the Maple Leaf’s eight passengers is catching glimpses of whales, wolves, dolphins and, of course, bears. Since the elusive Spirit bear – estimated to now only number between one and four hundred – rarely emerges from deep within the forests of Princess Royal and Gribble Islands until fall salmon spawning season, we pin our hopes on grizzly sightings, although Smith encourages us to lay our species checklists aside and simply “put ourselves in the path of the magic”.
Turns out, the magic is all around us as we explore some of the same secluded bays, marshy inlets and swift flowing channels that Captain George Vancouver and other early European explorers once charted, and that First Nations peoples have called home for thousands of years.
Magic in the exuberance of White Sided River Dolphins and Dall’s Porpoises as they race alongside our ship, darting in and out of the water like aquatic bullet trains. In the friendly flicks of humpback tails, the slapstick routines of sea otters, and the precision-guided dive-bombing runs of eagles and sandhill cranes. And most powerfully, during our first close encounter with grizzlies in one of this coastline’s many waterfall-draped coves.
Engine cut, our zodiac silently glides toward shore, where we spot a 400 pound grizzly and her fluffy cub grazing on shoreline sedges and giant-leafed skunk cabbage. Everyone tenses with excitement, but not fear, because we’re in good hands. With a decade of experience as a BC park ranger, Smith knows grizzlies and what safety precautions to take in their presence.
We’ll get respectfully close, but immediately retreat at the first hint of disturbance. Both bears seem blissfully undisturbed by our presence, and let us drift closer. That’s for two reasons, explains skipper Smith.
“With us nearby she knows that the male grizzlies will keep their distance because they are especially uncomfortable around humans”, Smith says, pointing out that males may try to kill young cubs that are not their genetic offspring. “Mama bear is also relaxed because she knows that we’re not here to shoot her,” he adds.
Bear shootings have dropped significantly since 2005, when the team of conservationists and scientists at Raincoast Conservation Foundation purchased the commercial hunting licence for a vast area here three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to block access to trophy hunters. Despite continued illegal hunting, this innovative approach has helped protect bears and other trophy hunting targets like coastal wolves – already threatened by loss of habitat and a declining salmon supply – from the crosshairs of high-powered rifles.
As our ursine neighbours munch their way toward the water’s edge, they take turns rearing up on hind legs to sniff for danger and locate each other in the tall sedge. Then, as suddenly as the deer and wolf had plunged in