Telegraph Cove is situated in a sheltered inlet at the northern end of Johnstone Strait (on the eastern coast of Northern Vancouver Island). It's a very small village that is now known for it's ecotourism and we had heard this was the place to come if you wanted to see some cool wildlife, especially Orcas. There is a seasonal resort that offers accommodations in some of the historic old buildings as well as a pub/restaurant. Several different companies operate out of the marina and I was lucky to grab the last seat on a full day tour with Tide Rip Grizzly Adventures.
The tour met at 6:30 am and since we were staying at a little cottage about 20 minutes away it was an early start! There was quite a bit of fog still lingering around when we first arrived. Jordan dropped me off and headed back to grab a shower and relax a little before returning for a tour with Prince of Wales which began at 9 am.
After signing our waivers we were assigned a boat - (there were three heading out and mine was called Silver Bear). Here's an image I took of my boat later in the day when the sun was shining.
We loaded up and began to pull out and start our day and I could not get over how utterly gorgeous everything looked!! I stood on the back of the boat just marveling and taking pictures because it was so breathtaking watching the fog and colors in this early morning light.
Our destination was Knight Inlet (two hours away), the longest inlet on the west coast of North America. This area is known for grizzlies, and black bears, as they feed on the sedge grass and on marine life along the exposed beaches. It would take us two hours to get there so we had lots of time to learn cool things from the naturalist like getting to see the difference between bear claws. On my boat there were eleven of us from all over the world.
The weather was very changeable, as we went along, with patches of blue sky and constant moving fog which really made for spectacular scenery around the passing islands.
Our first bear sighting was along the shore in a little cove where a female black bear was busy eating at the water. We stopped to watch her climb all around, scamper up rocks and listen for her cub which she must have had hidden nearby (our naturalist could tell she was a nursing mom). It was pretty cool to just see her there in her natural habitat.
As the sun came out it was stunningly beautiful.
We continued on with our captain/naturalist keeping their eye out for other wildlife as we got closer to our destination. It had become quite cloudy and a little windy as we neared Knight Inlet.
When we arrived we pulled up to the dock and had lunch and fortunately the sun began to come out and the wind died down. While we waited for our turn to get on the river skiff they hauled up a trap and I got to hold an enormous Dungeness crab. They explained that they only keep males of a certain size. The females and smaller/larger males all get thrown back in.
This is the view from the dock over to the area where the Grizzlies come down to feed on the sedge grass. Between the dock (where we had parked) and there the water gets real shallow and turns into a river that winds it's way back in. I had been under the impression we were going to transfer to river skiffs and ride those up the river a ways as we hopefully viewed any bears in the area.
I was bummed to now learn that we would get on the river skiff and cross this little section of water (as it got shallower) and then just park near the shoreline and hopefully get lucky to see bears right in this one area! I also learned we would have just one hour for our turn to have our river skiff up near that area and then we would transfer back to our boat and begin heading back. It was pretty disappointing to realize this was going to be the extent of our potential grizzly sightings (since the main selling point of this tour is grizzlies). I had set my expectation ahead of time that we might not see any bears since you can't schedule wildlife, but I did think this part of the tour was going to be more extensive and that we were going to go further than 5 minutes toward shore on our river skiff. As we sat there I enjoyed watching this beautiful Eagle pose nicely for me and there was a mama grizzly/cub wandering in the far distance. We also could clearly see footprints in the mud of a larger grizzly and smaller cub print. The images of the bears are with my long lens as you couldn't see them well with your naked eye (that's how far away they were). It was cool to later see better detail after I uploaded and cropped them closer. Our naturalist also said the bears are often more active in this area in the Spring when sedge grass is a huge part of their diet since other things aren't available to them that early in the season. She also said we'd be receiving a no grizzly certificate that we could use for another trip to try again (with no expiration date) since they wouldn't count the mama/cub due to them being so far away.
As we boarded back on our boat I think most of us were feeling a little down. We'd had a gorgeous boat ride but we had all hoped to see more wildlife. Our guides assured us we still had the two hours heading back and that you never knew what was going to show up. Within about fifteen minutes of leaving, they received a radio call about a large pod of Pacific White-Sided Dolphins making their way toward our location and sure enough they headed straight toward us! This was really one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I felt like I was watching a National Geographic special live.
Their speed was phenomenal!!!!! Our driver kept a distance but skillfully navigated us to see them coming and then alongside them so we could continue to watch. This video is in real time and a compilation of clips I took that Jordan put together.
After that amazing sight we continued on watching for other wildlife and ran into a small pod of Dolphins resting and slowly swimming together.
Here's a helpful sign we saw near the marina that we used to help us identify what we were seeing.
We also came upon Orcas two different times. The taller fins are the mature males and the shorter/curved ones are females and younger males.
We also saw a Humpback whale.
Jordan was waiting on the dock as we pulled back into the marina. I was amazed how exhausted I felt! It had been nine hours since we left and most of it I had been standing outside on the back of the loud boat in the wind because of course I didn't want to miss anything. HA.
I view this as a wildlife/scenery tour and in that regard it was an enormous success and I loved it and saw some of the coolest things. Perhaps next time I'll try to use my certificate in the Spring and will get to see more bears.
Jordan's tour ended up being incredible and he saw Orcas, Humpbacks, Dolphins and Porpoises! He said it exceeded all of his hopes for the trip (but I had the big camera and he was on the smaller Zodiak boat)....so no pictures).
August 2022
So happy for you! Since you are in the NW I highly recommend a book I read this spring. “The Sun is a Compass - A 4000 Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds” by Caroline Van Hemert. Non fiction. I actually listened to it via Audible and the reader is excellent. I think the book would be great though with photos and maps. A great adventure read.