2022/09 Great Bear Rainforest - Klemtu |
|||||
Monday - Klemtu
We had heard of the extreme delays going through security at Vancouver Airport, and that was why we were out of the house by 5 am and driving towards Vancouver. We’d thought the roads would be quiet but the lanes coming towards us were very busy, mostly with pickup trucks. We concluded that these were pipeline builders coming back to work.
Our usual turn onto the Alex Fraser bridge had disappeared but our alternative, the tunnel, wasn’t too bad. We were flying from the South Terminal, which handles float planes and regional carriers. It’s on the same island but a totally different experience from the main terminals; it felt like we were going back thirty years. There was no security inspection. When it was time to board the flight attendant led us out to a parked plane, about a thirty seater propeller plane with a 1 + 2 
seating configuration. Masks were required to be worn in the terminal and on the plane.
We flew northwest over snow-capped mountains for just over an hour. We could see why there had been no reason to build roads through the area. We landed at Bella Bella on Campbell Island, a community of about a thousand of the Heiltsuk people. Waiting for us with a van was Jack, an employee of the Spirit Bear Lodge. There were about twenty of us headed for the lodge and Jack shuttled us down to the harbor where there were two tour boats waiting for us. We were a bit crowded as their third boat was having to wait for a couple on a later flight.
The weather was gorgeous; sunny and still. I didn’t take any pictures of Bella Bella this time but this is one I took from the Inside Passage ferry back in 2004, when we passed by on our way to Prince Rupert and the Yukon. 
Currently, the ferry stops at Bella Bella a couple of days a week.
The trip to Klemtu takes about 90 minutes I think but we stopped to look any wildlife along the way. We caught sight of humpback whales but only their blows and tails. There were sealions, seals, and sea otters, but mostly too distant for useful pictures. 
Our only close views were at Sealion Rocks, though I think these are seals, not sealions.
We arrived at the lodge, which from this view looked to be in the wilderness, but is actually on the edge of the town of Klemtu. 
We all gathered in the lounge while the staff delivered our luggage to our doors. There are 12 rooms, mostly doubles, for a maximum of 25 guests. That and the short season probably explains the high prices.
John, the lodge manager, filled us in on the workings of the lodge and on our daily schedule. The lodge is owned by the people of Klemtu. They are members of the Kitasoo and Xai’xais nations who joined together for survival after being nearly wiped out by smallpox and other European diseases. They still have separate and quite different languages, as well as English.
There has been a lodge for 20 years. It had closed because of COVID, but 
they’d used the time to give it a major make-over. I’ve made a collage of some of the art here.
It had only just reopened and this was their first time with full occupancy. Only Canadian residents could make a reservation for this year.
We would be going out at 8am for the day in one of the tour boats, typically 8 of us plus a boat captain and two guides. Each day, we’d be going to one of three main destinations, the mouths of rivers, places where the bears go looking for salmon. If the bears were there we’d stay. If not, we’d move on somewhere else, or go look for whales or sealions. Some of the destinations involve a walk; for others we’d launch the two zodiacs. We’d been assigned waterproof jackets and pants, a lifejacket and rubber boots. And a large dry bag to hold our stuff.
He said they would do their best to give a sighting of a white bear but there were no guarantees from nature. We were there at the best time, the middle of the sockeye salmon run, when the bears were mostly likely to be at the mouths of the rivers.
We went to our rooms to unpack and settle in. The rooms were large and comfortable with this view of the water. We could see seals chasing large fish, probably salmon.
We realized we were missing a case, Sandie’s carry-on. This had all our medical stuff, pills and my CPAP. Sandie knew it had made it to the boat so it had to be somewhere between the landing and the lodge. The manager and his staff were searching the building.
We were sitting outside in the sunshine, getting to know our fellow passengers. They were mostly travelling retirees, but probably a decade younger than us. Everybody had a bear or a safari story. They’d all been asked to keep a lookout for our case. Finally the manager announced that it had been found, delivered to the wrong room. It was in the room of the people we’d been talking to! They were friends traveling together and both of them had assumed that the extra case in their room belonged to the other.
Dinner was refectory style, with three communal tables. We had free wine and beer before dinner and that was a three course meal, delivered by waitresses. The food was very good but one of those courses would have been enough for me.