If you’re an early riser, you might start your day with a fresh coffee and wanted into the great room or up onto the bluff for some pre-breakfast birdwatching or photography. 

Our boat-based excursion today will be either in the morning or afternoon, to be  timed around the tidal cycle to increase the likelihood of observing and photographing bears. We will look for bears foraging along the intertidal shorelines of the bays and inlets near the lodge. We will spend time at the mouth of a small stream where salmon are returning to spawn with hopes of seeing bears in pursuit of salmon. Depending on the time of year, we also expect to see a diversity of coastal birds, including kingfishers, mergansers, harlequin ducks, bufflehead, goldeneye, oystercatchers, cormorants, grebes, loons, turnstones, and bald eagles.

For our second excursion of the day, either after breakfast or lunch, we’ll enjoy a guided interpretive walk along Brady’s Beach. On warm days, this is an amazing place to kick off your shoes and stroll barefooted on this beautiful sandy beach and wave-swept shore interspersed with rocky headlands. You’ll enjoy learning about the fascinating lives of intertidal marine invertebrates, and why the intertidal zone is home to such an amazing diversity of marine life.

This afternoon, you might choose to go sea kayaking or go for a short tour of the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, or simply enjoy relaxing at the lodge with a book from our resource library.

Evening presentation: Introduction to Coastal Temperate Rainforests 

For the next three days you’ll enjoy an adventurous and luxurious balance of daily excursions aboard Passing Cloud to witness the herring spawn and grey whale migration, along with all the other wildlife that congregates here with it. You’ll also have plenty of time to enjoy Outer Shores Lodge’s amenities, morning and afternoon self-guided activities (like beach and forest walks, birdwatching, photography, and panoramic views from “the bluff”), the community of Bamfield, wonderful chef-prepared meals, and evening educational presentations.

Each day after breakfast (~8:30 AM), we’ll embark on Passing Cloud for a leisurely cruise some 15 nautical miles (~ 26 km) to the northwest shoreline of Barkley Sound, the region’s historic centre of the herring spawning and everything that comes with it. There we’ll explore, keeping an eye out for both the large greenish-white plumes of water that indicate where the herring spawning is taking place, and all the coastal wildlife that typically accompanies this incredible natural phenomenon. 

To get a closer look, we’ll board our inflatable skiffs and watch for massive flocks of surf scoters, as well as gulls, eagles, and other seabirds, like murres, auklets, cormorants, and grebes. We’ll also be on the lookout for the California and Steller sea lions that frequently gather here in huge numbers to feast on herring while also staying vigilant in their watch for the killer whales that show up to hunt them.

Meanwhile, grey whales on their way to the Bering Sea stop by to slurp herring eggs off the seagrasses and seaweeds. And finally, we’ll be watching for the land mammals, like black bears and wolves, who arrive on the scene to eat the herring eggs when they get exposed during low tides.

Each day we’ll take a new route through the Broken Group and Deer Groups Islands, learning about the remarkable natural and cultural history of Barkley Sound and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve along the way.