From sea wolves to tufted puffins, the journey around B.C.'s untamed coast reveals astonishing wildlife encounters

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Being mauled by a wolf was not something I’d given much thought to, until I locked eyes with one on an early morning kayak in Shushartie Bay on Vancouver Island’s remote northern tip. My husband and I were absorbed in photographing sweeping strands of bull kelp and hadn’t noticed the lone wolf’s silent approach. The menacing canine, mere yards from our kayak, tracked us as it moved along the shore before vanishing into the tree line.   

Jeff Reynolds, our expedition leader, told me afterward that this coastal sea wolf was likely an adolescent scouting for its pack, checking what the tide line had to offer before reporting back. He explained that sea wolves differ from their inland cousins, as seafood makes up most of their diet, and their partially webbed toes help them swim for their supper. Or, a breakfast of hapless kayakers too close to shore, I thought.  

On my weeklong stay aboard MV Cascadia on its Vancouver Island’s Wild Side tour, I explored remote northwest shores of coastal B.C. accessible only by float plane or boat. It’s one of the many small-ship excursions run by Maple Leaf Adventures, which sails the Wild Side route twice a year and is the only tourism outfit that makes the trip over the top of the island and down its northwest coast.  

Days aboard the powerful, 138-foot catamaran were punctuated by Reynolds’ cheerful updates over the PA: “Humpback whales, portside, 2 o’clock!”

Captain Jeff Harvey slowed Cascadia for these sightings, and we hurried from prow to portside to see pods of humpback whales, orcas and porpoises surfacing, sea lions cuddling pups on rocky shores and tufted puffins bombing around the seabird sanctuary of Solander Island. Our first long-table dinner of puttanesca-style pan-roasted ling cod was interrupted by a sighting of a black bear foraging amid the rocks on the shoreline beyond.  

‘Tender tootles’ became something of a fond refrain. With Cascadia safely anchored in coastal inlets, our group of 20 would split into two small tenders and ‘tootle’ off to nearby islands for an hour or so ashore. Each destination offered its own education, narrated by marine biologist and ecologist Reynolds and the ship’s naturalist Robyn Hutchings.   

From traversing a briny estuary with a fresh bear den and hiking through a forest beneath 1,000-year-old western red cedars – no two tootles were the same.  

On tiny, uninhabited Thornton Island off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, we were surrounded by dark choppy waters beneath grey rainy skies filled with screeching gulls and oystercatchers. Kitted out with walking poles and rubber boots, we sloshed from tender to shore as rafts of curious sea otters drifted past.

“This is probably the nicest seaweed you’ll ever see,” remarked Reynolds, explaining that the tidal pool we were standing in, chock full of sea lettuce, feather boa kelp and rockweed, cradled a complex ecosystem much richer than the crabs, sea stars and pink-tipped anemones I was focused on.  

This bleak beauty was a far cry from walking barefoot across the warm white sands of a beach at the shore of Brooks Peninsula, Vancouver Island’s only unglaciated refugium. The peninsula’s higher elevations escaped the last ice age, preserving old-growth rainforest and rare, endemic plant species found nowhere else on earth.   

Dinner conversations aboard Cascadia revealed that many of my shipmates have a taste for nature-based adventure, including Antarctic expeditions to trace Shackleton’s historic route and hikes in the foothills of the Himalayas. Mostly Canadians, with a few passengers from the U.S., New Zealand and Switzerland, our easygoing group ranged in age from 14 to 93.   

Cascadia carries up to 24 guests across 12 cabins. Between excursions, we chatted over lattes and read in the ship’s salon or watched for wildlife from the deck. Some of us kayaked at dawn, while others took evening dips off the aft deck and a soak in the rooftop hot tub.    

Victoria-based Maple Leaf Adventures marks 40 years of small-ship expeditions this year. For some guests, the trip has become a habit. One retired teacher from Richmond was on her eleventh Cascadia voyage since 2021. “It’s my happy place,” she said, already looking ahead to her next trip, a Great Bear Rainforest excursion a month out. Not knowing what she’ll see next, she told me, is why she keeps coming back.  

Chef Chris Picek sources seafood, the mainstay of his maritime menu, with traceability so precise it lists each vessel and catch location. A selection of Spinnakers craft beer and Cowichan Valley and Okanagan wine pairings rounded out our lively three-course dinners.  

A memorable meal followed a visit to Spring Island, in the traditional territory of the Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h’ people, where we joined members from the village of Kyuquot for a salmon bake around an open campfire.  

Community member Lana Jules butterflied two freshly caught king salmon, splaying each on a frame of cedar strips, and suspending them beside the fire to cook. A convivial potluck followed back on the ship, with local families bringing the delectable salmon, halibut casserole and Bannock bread to be served alongside Chef Picek’s tasty sides.  

Since 2020, when the pandemic halted tourism, Maple Leaf CEO Kevin Smith has organized shoreline cleanups to help clear debris – Styrofoam, plastic, fishing gear and rope – caught in the North Pacific gyre before breaking free to wash up on B.C.’s coast. Most of what collects on the beaches, explained Smith, started out as oil, transformed into cheap, disposable plastic that begins breaking down on the coast.   

“It’s quite a concern, because it looks like food for seabirds, fish [and animals],” he said. “Along the way whales and birds get tangled up in it.”  

So far, they’ve recovered roughly 370 tonnes – about the size of 30 large school buses – of marine debris from the B.C. coast through a joint effort between five ecotourism outfits and local Indigenous nations, with support from the B.C. government’s Clean Coast Clean Waters Initiative.   

At Brooks Peninsula, Reynolds gathered plastic water bottles and chunks of broken foam into a heavy-duty garbage bag, then hopped over a pile of drift logs and worked to free a fishnet tangled in the wood and sand. “We’ve cleaned up this beach before,” he said. “Again, and again.”  

Reynolds is careful to stress that joining the cleanup is entirely voluntary, but many guests chip in anyway – sometimes collecting enough debris to require an extra tender trip back to the ship.  

The voyage departed from Port Hardy, rounded Cape Scott and followed the coast down through Brooks Peninsula and Kyuquot Sound, with Cascadia’s crew letting the tide and wind set the itinerary between shores, islands and inlets along the way.

On our final day, while anchored in Varney Bay, we waited to see if the tides would work in our favour for one last adventure to explore Marble River.    

Our group split up into a tender and several kayaks, and floated silently into an echoey, cave-filled channel where trees and ferns hung from towering limestone walls above. The water ran clear enough to see the deep rock walls below the surface, as harbour seals dipped and frolicked alongside our boats. We drifted, just taking it all in, struck quiet by the wonders of this wild coast.   

Maple Leaf Adventures’ Vancouver Island’s Wild Side journeys: Departures in 2027 aboard Cascadia from July 7 to 14, starting at $9,940 per person, and aboard Maple Leaf from July 29 to Aug. 5, starting at $7,300 per person. A 13-day Vancouver Island Super Voyage aboard Cascadia departs July 14 to 26, starting at $12,790 per person.  

Mary Beth Roberts was a guest of Maple Leaf Adventures, which did not preview this story before publication.