Call Of The Wild

By Valerie Marchant/Knight Inlet

In shallow tidal waters near Knight Inlet Lodge, in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, I catch sight of two grizzlies, the first I have ever seen in the wild. Four-year-olds, they hang out and fool around, rather like human teenagers. Then five more bears stroll out of the forest--a female with a golden cub and another mother with two cubs. The mothers nurse the 18-month-old cubs and scoop up some of the hundreds of thousands of salmon on their way up the inlet to spawn and die. Then another bear appears, followed by tiny triplets. This excites my guide, Owen Nevin, a Utah State University doctoral student whose subject is inlet bears, even more than it does me. It's unusual, he explains, for anyone to see a mother with three "young-of-the-year" cubs. I'm jubilant, aware of how privileged I am to be able to spend the morning with 11 of the grandest animals on the planet.

In fact, I am a happy camper, or in more formal terms, a satisfied ecotourist, defined by the Ecotourism Society as someone engaged in "responsible travel to natural areas, which conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people." Here in the Great Bear Rainforest--which lies between Knight Inlet, about 100 air miles northwest of Vancouver, and the Alaska border--are some of the highest concentrations of grizzlies in North America. Up to three times as many live here as in all the U.S. Not only can I commune (at a safe distance) with the bears; I can get amazingly close to orcas, bald eagles, ospreys, sea otters and seals. I can even swim with the salmon, which I did on Vancouver Island on my way to Knight Inlet.

Eco- and adventure tourists are expected to spend more than $6.5 billion in 2000 in British Columbia alone. Nature travel is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry worldwide, increasing from 20% to 30% annually in recent years. Many of the 13 million Americans who travel to Canada for leisure each year participate in outdoor activities. When Dean Wyatt bought Knight Inlet Lodge in 1996, all his business was sports fishing; now it is 98% ecotourism. Since 1993 the number of Canadian-based ecotourist operators like Wyatt has tripled, to more than 2,100.

Ecotourists will spend plenty of money on these learning adventures. A five-day complete package at Knight Inlet Lodge, which includes the flight to and from Vancouver Island, accommodations and food, boat tours, wildlife viewing, presentations, tracking, kayaking and fishing, costs a couple up to $4,720. Still this is much less than an equivalent safari in Africa--and less than many similar adventures offered by U.S. outfitters, in part because of the weak Canadian dollar.

In return for spending thousands of dollars on a vacation, wildlife viewers want knowledgeable and personable guides and staff. At Knight Inlet Lodge, the guests applaud the staff, no less attractive than the Baywatch gang, only fully clothed and better educated. Guest Larry Jandrew of Asheville, N.C., who brought a family party of himself and seven others to the lodge, was particularly taken by Meg Pocklington, a Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center research assistant, who during a long hike through the rain forest took special care of Jandrew's mother-in-law Kitty Conley. Pat Chadwick and Sam Twyford, a retired couple from Australia, were struck by how "friendly--and environmentally conscious" Canadians are.

Just as supportive as the staff at Knight Inlet were those at Paradise Found Adventure Tours (www.paradisefound.bc.ca), where I swam with the salmon. The opportunity to get up close and personal with salmon was high on my agenda for this trip, because most of the animals I would see depend for their survival on these fish. As the sun set on Campbell River in Vancouver Island, I drifted with the current through clear water. Because my guide, Jamie Turko, was so determined to protect me, I could totally focus on one of nature's great mysteries: the journey of Pacific salmon to reproduce and die in the spot where they were born. Would that the salmon had done so well: some of the hundreds that slipped past me were so bashed up by obstacles encountered on their journey that I was astonished they were still swimming.

The importance of good guides is confirmed again on my second afternoon at the lodge. In a boat on Johnstone Strait, we catch sight of three orcas, otherwise known as killer whales. Paul Chaplow, who has spent the past 10 years in these waters, reveals the identities of the three orcas. What were moments ago little more than anonymous dorsal fins zipping by in dark waters became R2, a 62-year-old mom, and her two sons, R3, age 44, and R12, 34. Because their society is matriarchal, the sons will remain with their mother until she dies. The whales, remarkable for their complex social structure, distinct dialects and their adaptable and cooperative behavior, are a few of the 300 or so "resident" whales that live in these waters. Thanks to Chaplow, I feel as if I have not just seen the orcas but also met them--and having met them, on returning home I even adopted R2 via the website www.whalelink.org Indeed, it is a goal of many ecotourist outfitters to send their clients back home caring enough to consider supporting the cause of protecting these animals and their surroundings--emotionally and financially.

Ecotours are often about native culture as well as animals. At Knight Inlet in western Canada, guests may visit the home village of guide Nick Chowdhury, a member of the Tanakteuk Band. Across the country in a very different landscape, Cree guides lead animal lovers in Polar Bear Provincial Park. Traveling with Free Spirit Air Adventures www.elmhirst.com) Alice Piacentini of Prospect, Ohio, flew with her husband, four children ranging then from six to 14, and her parents-in-law to the 9,100-sq.-mi. park in northern Ontario. While everyone in the family was thrilled by the bears, they were even more affected by Sam Hunter, their Cree guide, and his family www.icebeartours.com) The best part of the trip, Piacentini says, was "the respect for the land and animals that we gained through their eyes, by hearing their stories, by seeing them on the tundra. We did not want to leave the people we had come to know and love."

The Piacentinis learned about the polar-bear park by chance, but many ecotourists find out about such places from television or magazines--and then use the Internet to research or book their trips. Knight Inlet Lodge's Internet site, www.grizzlytours.com has helped attract people from the U.S. and 17 other countries. Larry Jandrew chose Knight Inlet because his wife Barb, a bear fan, had watched an A&E television show, in which the lodge was touted as the fifth most exotic vacation on earth.

Media accounts have also drawn tens of thousands to Ontario's Algonquin Park (www.algonquinpark.on.ca), 3,000 sq. mi. of wild country--with an unusual attraction: public wolf howls. Provided park naturalists find packs in suitable locations in advance, howls take place on Thursday nights in August. Folks drive hours to attend a howl, which may last less than two minutes. Yet "no one goes away disappointed," says park naturalist Rick Stronks. When this haunting symphony of adult wolves and pups begins, not a peep is heard from human crowds as large as 2,500.

In Canada, where so much wilderness still provides a home to hundreds of species of birds and other animals, the ecotourist can fly north to watch the polar bears, drive a few hours from Toronto to listen to wolves, or skim over dark forests and mist-swathed mountains in a tiny floatplane, as I did to reach Knight Inlet. The journey is one of the most satisfying aspects of an adventure that will make even a jaded world traveler feel like a child whose picture book has come to life.