08/29/2026
Vancouver Island Tip to Tip: Day 14
This is a day we won’t forget!
Thank you to Sea Wolf Adventures in Fort McNeill for sharing this beautiful experience with us.
I booked this tour (Grizzly Bears of the Wild) for our family months ago, and didn’t revisit any details since, which made the day so much better as we approached it with complete openness and no expectations…well except the hope of seeing Grizzlies of course 🧸😁
My thought going into the tour was, we will be on a boat the whole time and hope to see the bears from the coastline.
Was I ever WRONG! And I’m so glad I was!
We started the day in a thick fog on the water so we enjoyed some First Nations cultural storytelling to set the mood. Then, as the fog started to break we spotted our first family of orcas! This was not a whale watching tour but we were absolutely spoiled with enjoying the beauty of witnessing orcas, and eventually a humpback too, as we ventured towards the mainland. 🐋
Also, we spotted some adorable deer on an island and stopped to enjoy them too 🦌
After a breathtaking 2.5 hour boat ride, we got off the boat, drove on a side by side across to another boat where we crossed a river. Then we hiked a short ways into the GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST 🫣
The guides led us to a viewing platform (code for: a place in the grass to watch from 😳) and immediately we saw this momma bear and cubs eating salmon in the river.
After only a couple of minutes, she went back into the forest with her cubs and we thought our time to see grizzlies was complete. With already full hearts, we sat and enjoyed the view for a couple hours, still with hopes that we might see more. 🤞
Our guide decided to take us to a different spot on the river, closer to the waterfall, to see if we might have more luck seeing the bears.
Well on this walk it got really smelly (like seriously really bad wet dog smell) and she knew we were close. Not going to lie…felt kinda nervous just waiting in the woods as the wafts of stink just kept coming over us knowing that the bears could be anywhere. Our heads were on swivels!
…rest of the story in comments
