Knight Inlet Lodge

This lodge is the oldest bear viewing facility in Canada, offering amazing opportunities to see bears up close. Watch bears fishing, foraging and playing with their cubs from the comfort of the lodge and take hundreds of fantastic photos.

Knight Inlet Lodge, a floating lodge on the 100-mile-long Knight Inlet, has one of the highest resident populations of grizzlies in British Columbia. Far from human habitation, the lodge is set in the Great Bear Rainforest, 6.4 million hectares of protected land that encompasses a quarter of the world’s coastal rainforest.

Bear viewing by boat takes place from May to August and platform viewing from August to October, coinciding with salmon runs. As well as peak season in autumn, the lodge also has good bear viewing in spring and summer compared with other lodges, due to nearby food sources throughout the season.

Optional excursions from the lodge include a two-hour cruise through Knight Inlet to waterfalls, walking tours through old-growth rainforest and above the forest canopy, bear tracking trips and sea kayaking. For those staying four or five nights, enjoy a whale-watching tour in the Johnson Strait.

The lodge has a range of deluxe and family rooms with en suite bathrooms, wardrobes and desks, as well as a guest lounge and dining room. Guest rooms either have views of the inlet or the shoreline behind the lodge, where guests often see bears foraging and travelling to and from the estuary.

Capacity is strictly limited to improve guest experience. The lodge is decorated with carved panels by indigenous artists and the whole lodge is a digital detox zone with no WiFi. Home-cooked food is locally sourced from Vancouver Island.

The lodge is about an hour by float plane from Campbell River. Season is late May until mid-October with packages ranging from two to six nights.