IMAGES: JEREMY MATHIEU


CANADA


A sea otter off Vancouver Island. Left: Bluewater Adventures’ Island Odyssey


ADVENTURES AFLOAT DIVE INTO NATURE


A small-ship cruise around the maze of islands scattered off the remote north coast of Vancouver Island reveals some of British Columbia’s most magnificent wildlife. Words: Georgia Stephens


Vancouver Islanders have a name for the few weeks in late summer when whales can be spotted from ships close to shore: ‘humpback soup’. Like a pot on the boil, the sea churns over this period with heaving, grey muscle, all popping and roiling and slapping the surface with barnacle- crusted flukes, so close you can hear the wind-tunnel roar of air being sucked wetly into gargantuan lungs. Whale-watching — normally a sedate activity


— practically becomes an adrenaline sport during this period, involving many unsteady sprints from port to starboard and back again for a triumphant glimpse of a tail fin or a gut punch of lingering spray. Cetacean-spotting here offers rich pickings, but the


Johnstone Strait — a narrow and, on the surface, completely unremarkable channel cleaving the northeast shore of Vancouver Island from craggy mainland British Columbia — is particularly notable for its high number of humpback sightings. But myriad other species call these shores home, among them galumphing, salt-crusted grizzlies, skulking black bears and rare sea wolves, as well as porpoises, dolphins and cougars. Bald eagles also perch imperiously in the islands’ coniferous fringes, their white heads starkly contrasting with the green, feather-tipped fronds. For Canadian wildlife, there are few better places — and


for orca, there are few better places in the world. There are three kinds that ply the waters here: the vocal ‘residents’,


which feast on the salmon that wash silvery life into the waterways every summer; the ‘transients’ — seal-eating, sneaky and wolf-like in their ‘pack’ behaviour, and silent unless celebrating a meal; and the elusive ‘offshores’. The only way in or out of this maze of waterways is by


seaplane — a wide-angled, often wide-eyed perspective that misses the finer details — or by boat. On a small- ship cruise, those finer details — and the essence of what this stretch of coast is about — come into focus: the cathedral-like hush beneath the rainforest canopy, the heavy scent of sap hanging like incense in the air; the sound of beachcombing grizzly bears crunching mussels like breakfast cereal; the briny tang of nibbled samphire, plucked fresh from the intertidal zone from aboard a rigid inflatable boat. And the sight of a mighty black fin — not glimpsed from above but at eye level — cleaving the waves just beyond the bow. Days are easygoing, taking ships wherever the wind and


the wildlife sightings lead; time seems to slow, dictated by the turning of the tides. And gradually, all lingering thoughts of the man-made world drift away in this labyrinth of islands at the centre of a rich natural world. HOW TO DO IT: Bluewater Adventures has a seven-day Whales, Totems & Grizzlies itinerary focused on Northern Vancouver Island from £2,754 per person, including all meals. Flights are extra. bluewateradventures.ca


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