Some lodges are hidden in a bay. This one stands out on a point, cedar and blue roofs on a spine of rock at the edge of Berry Island, with the Broughton Archipelago opening on three sides and a floating lodge tied in below it. I photographed it in late summer, when the sign on the dock still said Farewell Harbour. The name has changed since. The point has not.
Berry Island is one of more than two hundred islands in the Broughton Archipelago Marine Park, at the southern edge of the Great Bear Rainforest and in the territory of the Mamalilikulla First Nation. The lodge occupies a homestead first cleared in 1920; the rest of the island is protected rainforest. You reach it by water taxi from Alder Bay, half an hour through Johnstone Strait and Blackfish Sound, and the first thing you see is the deck.
Two lodges, one ramp
The main lodge sits on the rock with eight guest rooms strung along a cedar boardwalk above the water. A ramp drops from its deck to a floating lodge with four more rooms and the dock the boats work from.
From the air, at dusk, the whole arrangement reads as one lit shape on the point, with the archipelago going pink and silver behind it. That is the frame the drone was there for.
Every room, on the rock or on the float, looks at the water. They are cedar inside, with two beds, an ensuite, a fireplace, and a wall of glass onto the harbour. The rooms on the float have the tide moving under them; the rooms on the boardwalk have the forest at their backs. Neither is the lesser option.
The boardwalk is the corridor. Walking to your room means walking along the edge of the island.
The deck is where the day starts and ends. In the morning it is where you meet the guides and hear what the water is doing; in the evening it is Adirondack chairs, fire tables, and a glass of something while the sun goes down behind the islands. The lodge plans each day the evening before, around the weather and the wildlife, and the deck is where that conversation happens.
What the days are made of
Full-day bear viewing in the inlets and estuaries, by boat, by zodiac or on foot depending on the tide. Marine tours for orca, humpbacks, Pacific white-sided dolphins, Dall's porpoises and Steller sea lions in the water around the island. Guided sea kayaking from the dock, paddleboards, rainforest walks, and visits to Indigenous cultural sites with the lodge's neighbours.
The lodge's own line on wildlife is the honest one: the guides seek animals in their natural habitat, from small boats and on foot, and that is less predictable than a viewing platform. Nothing is guaranteed. I spent most of my days on the point photographing the lodge itself, and still came home with dolphins, sea lions, seals and eagles from the water around it.
Taking the plunge is totally optional, but we encourage you to literally jump outside your comfort zone. A warm towel awaits you.
The lodge, on the 5 pm swim club
The boats go out and come back by 4:30, and what happens next is the lodge’s oldest tradition. At five, whoever is willing walks down to the dock and jumps in. The water is the same temperature as everywhere else on this coast, which is to say cold enough to make a point, and the towel waiting on the dock is warm. It is optional. I did not jump; I was above it with the drone, which is the photographer’s way of attending, and the frames went to the lodge.
Inside, by the fire
The main lodge is one big cedar room under a cathedral ceiling: leather sofas around a brick fireplace, a dining room, a bar, and windows on every side that make the fireplace optional most evenings.
The kitchen is in the same building, and the smell of it reaches the sofas well before dinner does. Mussels went into a bowl while I was photographing, which is a hard thing to stay professional through.
What I remember most is how the place ran: a family feel, the staff and the guests in the same room by the end of the first evening. I hope the new owners have kept that spirit, and some of the people who made it.
Be clear-eyed about the logistics, because they are precise. The water taxi leaves Alder Bay between noon and 12:30 and the lodge asks you to be there by 11:30; that means arriving on Vancouver Island the day before, whether you fly Pacific Coastal into Port Hardy and take the lodge’s shuttle, or take the Horseshoe Bay ferry and drive four hours north from Nanaimo. Book departing flights after 2 pm. The lodge is off grid: no laundry, a well for water, batteries and a generator for power. Guests need to be able to step in and out of boats and walk uneven ground; children are welcome from seven. Rain gear and rubber boots are provided, because this is the coastal temperate rainforest and it will, at some point, rain. The other thing to pack for is fog. Mornings out here are often fogged in, sometimes all day, and the right clothes are the difference between a grey morning on the deck and a cold one.
The name on the dock changed. The reason to sit on this deck at sunset did not.
