Vancouver Island Grizzlies and Orcas

After making your way to Vancouver International Airport, head to the South Terminal and check in at Pacific Coastal Air for your flight.  Your 70 minute flight crosses Vancouver Island’s Inside Passage and lands at Port Hardy, near the Island’s north tip. At Port Hardy Airport, a taxi will be waiting to escort you to Port McNeill.  Here you’ll board a coastal ferry for a 35 minute voyage to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island.  Once in Alert Bay, you can catch a taxi (about $5) at the ferry terminal for a 2 kilometre drive down the ocean road to Alert Bay Lodge. You can also call the lodge from the ferry and the manager will try to get away to pick you up.  Please advise the manager what time you would like to take dinner at the lodge.
Meals: D

Today is yours at leisure to explore the village of Alert Bay. After breakfast, the lodge manager will provide you with a map highlighting popular attractions on the 5 km long Cormorant Island and tickets to U’Mista Cultural Centre. The village can easily be reached by foot from the lodge. You may choose to visit the Alert Bay Tourism Information Centre, shops and galleries featuring native art. Experience the wonder of the U’Mista Cultural Centre with its examples of historic and contemporary artwork, including a First Nations reclaimed potlatch collection. Should time allow, marvel at First Nations dancing at the Big House, or tour the Ecological Gardens and Big Tree Trail – a series of easy walking trails located at the top of the island approximately 2 km from the Village.
Meals: B

Today after breakfast depart Alert Bay for an exciting eight-hour excursion to Telegraph Cove including a 3.5-hour whale watching tour of the inlets, islands and waterways in Johnston Strait and the Broughton Archipelago. After a taxi ride to the ferry terminal and a short ferry ride to Port McNeill, spend a short time touring Telegraph Cove, its small shops and the fascinating Whale Interpretative Centre that highlights the biology, habitat needs and threats to orcas and other local marine mammals (admission by donation).  Lunch can be taken at Telegraph Cove. In the early afternoon, you embark on your whale watching tour. As the on-board naturalist narrates, your skipper leads the search for orcas, humpback and minke whales as well as other marine life such as Dahl porpoises, harbour porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphins and sea lions. Bald eagles and many species of birds are plentiful in the region and black bears, deer and cougars may be spotted along the shore.  After your whale watching tour the last leg of the excursion whisks you from Telegraph Cove by high speed boat to cross Johnstone Strait. You arrive in Alert Bay by late afternoon.
Meals: B

We depart at 6:45 am from Alert Bay for a full day on the water to seek out grizzly bears in their natural habitat. Our destination is Knight Inlet, a two hour ride by covered boat into Johnstone Strait. Becoming famous for its population of Grizzly bears, Knight Inlet a long and deep glacier-carved fjord surrounded by snow-capped mountains and steep-sided, forested cliffs.

The order of activities on Days 2, 3 and 4 may vary due to weather conditions and tour operation logistics.

Alternate tour options:

Victoria-Vancouver: starting in Victoria with a coach transfer to Port McNeill and a flight from Port Hardy back to Vancouver. Prices are the same as the itinerary listed above.

Vancouver-Vancouver: starting in Vancouver with a flight to Port Hardy with a flight back from Port Hardy to Vancouver. Prices are slightly higher for this option that includes round-trip airfare.