The record · Western Canada
For your family, your friends or your company: fly-in fishing, bear viewing, sea kayaking, cold-water diving and heli-access alpine lodges across Western Canada, each one explored, photographed and filmed first-hand, with seasons, capacity and real rates on the record.
The Journal
Every story here was shot on location. Words, photography and film by Ben Taft.
Gateway Stays
Every trip into the Rockies or the Columbias needs a spare day in Canmore in case the flight or the weather slips. Here is how I would spend it: the Bow River path, Grassi Lakes and Ha Ling, Main Street and the breweries, the drive to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, the Icefields, and the day tours that do the driving for you.
Ben Taft ·
Bear Viewing Lodges
The question every first-timer asks, answered from two seasons in the boats and on the stands at Glendale Cove: the distance rules, why nobody lands on an estuary, how a guide ends an encounter, the spray, the minimum ages, the certification, habituation against food conditioning, who owns the bears' rivers, and the photographer's rule I hold myself to.
Ben Taft ·
Bear Viewing Lodges
The verdict on Knight Inlet Lodge after a spring and an autumn there with a camera: who it is for, who should look elsewhere, the rooms, the food, the guides, the boat season against the platform season, the floatplane and its bag limit, what it costs from the 2027 tariff, and what I would change.
Ben Taft ·
Sea Kayaking Tours
You do not need to have sat in a sea kayak before. What a guided camp on the BC coast asks for instead: moderate fitness, a morning of instruction, a willingness to be cold and wet on purpose, and a bit of trust in the person in the other seat. What is provided, what you pack, why the water is ten degrees, and which camp I would send a nervous beginner to.
Ben Taft ·
Wellness Retreats
I built the 360 tour of this floating lodge in Clayoquot Sound when it was Tofino Wilderness Resort. In 2022 the Ahousaht hawiih bought it and reopened it as Wahous. This is the place as the tour shows it, from the channel in to the longhouse fire, and what a stay there costs and includes now, from the lodge's own pages.
Ben Taft ·
Sea Kayaking Tours
The northern resident orcas come back to Johnstone Strait every summer for the salmon and the rubbing beaches at Robson Bight, and the humpbacks have come back with them. The season as the operators publish it, the reserve nobody may enter, kayak against boat, and the three ways on this record: Orca Camp, Spirit of the West, and a whale day from Knight Inlet Lodge.
Ben Taft ·
Bear Viewing Lodges
Knight Inlet Lodge, Berry Island Lodge and Wildcoast's grizzly week, compared on what they cost, when they run, how you watch and how you get there, by the photographer who has been to all three. And the lodges I have not been to yet, named honestly.
Ben Taft ·
Bear Viewing Lodges
Where the bears are, the two ways you are shown them, the rules a guide will not bend, what it costs and how you get there. From two seasons at Glendale Cove with a camera, and the rest of the coast as the operators publish it.
Ben Taft ·
Bear Viewing Lodges
The package, the tax, the night before, the flights to Campbell River, the tips, the bar and the insurance: a grizzly trip priced line by line from the operators' own tariffs, for one person and for two.
Ben Taft ·
The collection
Every one stayed at, photographed, filmed and toured in person.
Clayoquot Sound · Wellness Retreats
An Ahousaht-owned floating lodge in Quait Bay, Clayoquot Sound, all-inclusive from $2,426 per person for two nights with the boat from Tofino, meals, guided kayaking and the spa in the price.
BC Interior · Fishing Lodges
Boat-access fly-fishing lodge on fifteen interior lakes, max twelve guests, all-inclusive from $1,740 per person.
Great Bear Rainforest · Bear Viewing Lodges
Indigenous-owned floating lodge at Glendale Cove; boat-based bear viewing in spring, viewing stands from late August.
Southern Gulf Islands · Coastal Retreats
Oceanfront guesthouse, farm and spa on Salt Spring Island with four suites, a private beach and breakfast included.
BC Interior · Backcountry Lodges
Heli-access lodge in the Wildcat Creek basin near Golden, ski touring in winter, alpine hiking in summer.
Nootka Sound · Fishing Lodges
Road-accessible Nootka Sound resort with cedar yurts, chalets, lodge suites and camping, from $89 a night.
Nootka Sound · Fishing Lodges
Remote floating resort in Esperanza Inlet; three- and four-night guided fishing packages from $6,100 per person.
Nootka Sound · Fishing Lodges
Floating resort at Galiano Bay selling three- and four-night guided fishing packages from $2,325 per person.
BC Interior · Backcountry Lodges
Heli-access backcountry lodge fifteen minutes from Golden, with guided and self-guided ski touring and hiking.
North Vancouver Island · Fishing Lodges
All-inclusive fishing and wilderness lodge on Malcolm Island off northern Vancouver Island, eighteen guests in log cabins, fully guided four- and five-day trips from $7,035.
Discovery Islands · Sea Kayaking Tours
Quadra Island sea kayaking operator running four- to eight-day base-camp and expedition trips from $1,695.
Discovery Islands · Fishing Lodges
Private-island lodge in Discovery Passage, all-inclusive at $545 per person a night, with fishing priced by the boat.
Nootka Sound · Fishing Lodges
Year-round riverfront fly-fishing lodge near Strathcona Park, all-inclusive from $780 per person a night.
Discovery Islands · Sea Kayaking Tours
Quadra Island operator running a canvas basecamp beside Robson Bight, with four- to seven-day guided paddles into Johnstone Strait from $1,906.
Great Bear Rainforest · Bear Viewing Lodges
All-inclusive wildlife lodge in the Broughton Archipelago, formerly Farewell Harbour: twelve ocean-view rooms, grizzly and whale trips by boat, sea kayaks and a 5 pm swim club.
North Vancouver Island · Dive Resorts
Off-grid dive resort on Hurst Island working Browning Passage, reached by boat or seaplane from Port Hardy.
Clayoquot Sound · Guided Fishing Charters
Year-round Tofino sportfishing charters sold by the boat for up to five guests, from $800 for a half day.
Kept first-hand
Plan the trip
Which months each place is open, what to pack, two places set side by side, or two joined into one trip.
When to go
Month by month, which of the 17 experiences are open, from the operators' own published seasons, with notes on the salmon run, the whale months and the snow.
See the calendarGear
7 packing lists, 6 gear guides and 3 getting-there pages, each written from a stay at the place it covers, with a box beside every item.
Open the gear hubPlan a trip
Pick a pair and a month and see the days laid out, gateway to gateway, with the pre-nights the operators ask for and the cost for two from their own rates.
Build the tripHead to head
Two helicopter-access lodges out of Golden, BC, compared by someone who has stayed at both: terrain, guiding, group, price, and which to book for a first backcountry week.
Compare the twoHead to head
Two bear-viewing lodges on the Great Bear Rainforest coast, compared by someone who has stayed at both: a water taxi from Alder Bay against a floatplane from Campbell River with no carry-on and a 14 to 15 kg limit, small boats and estuaries against viewing stands over spawning channels, twelve rooms on a point against eighteen on a float, and which to book for which season.
Compare the twoHead to head
Two sea kayak base camps on Johnstone Strait, compared by someone who has paddled with both: tented cabins in the forest against walk-in safari tents, a wood-fired tub and sauna against a cedar hot tub facing the whale channel, water taxi against Quadra Island staging, trip length, price band, group size, and which to book.
Compare the twoOperators pay when the site sends them a qualified enquiry. Placement in listings and comparison pages is not for sale, and nothing an operator pays changes what is on the record. Many of the places listed are my photography clients, and the site says so.
No. You book directly with the operator at their published rate: there is no aggregator margin added on top, and the site never handles your payment.
Every listing page carries the date its record was last checked against what the operator publishes, and lists the sources. Where a figure could not be confirmed it is marked inferred rather than guessed at, and if something is wrong, tell me and I will fix it.
A person reads it, then it goes to the operator you chose. If they cannot take your dates, I may offer it to up to two similar operators, only ever one at a time. Your details are never sold to advertisers or list brokers.
