When to go

On the record here, Knight Inlet Lodge in the Great Bear Rainforest runs spring to mid-October: boat-based viewing in spring and summer as bears feed on estuary growth and then berries, and purpose-built stands above the spawning channels from late August to mid-October, when pink salmon draw dozens of grizzlies in. Berry Island Lodge in the Broughton Archipelago opens June 1 to October 6 in 2026 and May 30 to October 8 in 2027.

From roughly July to October, orca and humpback move through Johnstone Strait in numbers, and encounters from a sea kayak are common without being promised. Wildcoast Adventures runs Orca Camp beside the Robson Bight reserve with departures every three days from 1 July to 17 September; Spirit of the West Adventures runs its British Columbia trips from late June to late September; Sointula Lodge says orca are seen from July. Nobody can promise a wild animal: in August the author saw sea lions and one humpback from the water taxi to Orca Camp, and no orca in three days there.

Purcell Mountain Lodge runs ski touring and snowshoeing from December to April and hiking from June to September. Mistaya Lodge runs ski touring from late December to late April and alpine hiking from early July to mid-September. Both are reached by helicopter from Golden on fixed changeover days and close in the shoulder seasons, when neither snow nor trail can be relied on.

Late autumn through early spring, once the plankton bloom dies back: twenty to thirty metres of visibility is common in winter against five to ten in midsummer. The water sits near 8 to 10°C year-round, so a drysuit is the working standard whatever the month, and the trade is visibility against daylight rather than warmth. The resort does not publish season dates.

4 of the 16 on the record carry a year-round season: God's Pocket Resort (not published; visibility is best from late autumn to early spring); Lightwater Cove (not published; assumed year-round); The Lodge at Gold River (year-round); Tofino Fish Guides (year-round; peak salmon and halibut mid-May to the end of September, winter chinook and prawns from October). Every other listing closes for part of the year; the exact published window is quoted beside each one on this page.