British Columbia

Jelster

Jelster

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Steve
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Looking for some advice please peoples.... The wife and I have a 5 stop trip planned to BC at the end of June.

The Itinerary looks something like this:

Vancouver City - 2 days
Whistler - 2 Days
Drive to Vancouver Island (about a day in the car)
Victoria - 2 days
Campbell River 2 days
Tofino - 3 days
Drive back to Vancouver...

Kit: I'm just about to invest in a Sigma 150-600 for my 7D, so I thought that with my 70-200 f2.8, 6D with 24-105 & 17-40. We will be doing a fair bit of hiking, but at least we can drive to some areas, but I think I'll upgrade my CF tripod to something a bit better. I want to get the bodies & lenses in one bag to hand carry onto the plane (yes, I know it'll be more than 5kg!!). I can get most of the above in my ThinkTank Streetwalker bag, but need to go a bit bigger to take an additional lens. Currently my SW takes 7D with 300 f4 + EX1.4 attached, 6D with 24-105 and one other smaller lens so I'm sure I can find a carry on size bag for the above.

Subjects: Hoping to see bears (browns most likely) Bald Eagle and whales.

I'm sure some of you have got similar kit and have done similar trips. We're hoping to spend most of the time wildlife watching, but it is also the Wife's Birthday and our Anniversary while we're away, so a little bit of city scaping too.

Any advice on definite stuff I should/should not take would be handy - and bag suggestions too :)
Any other wildlife I should be looking for/researching ?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Hi steve ,
I'm very envious of your trip, was there a few years ago and it's fab. If you're getting the ferry from horseshoe bay over to van island spend a bit of time wandering around the bay, it's beautiful and there are otters around the moored boats.you may see whales and dolphins from the ferry too.
On van island you'll see brown bears at the road side if you keep your eyes peeled ,bald eagles are every where ,also juvenile Eagles - brown in colour.
We went a few days with Knights inlet bear tours,to see grizzly bears and saw a huge number of them, which was superb, also blue herons too. With Knights inlet trip , you do a float plane ride out there from Campbell river and that in itself is worth the trip- stunning aerial views and where we caught the plane sea otters were doing acrobatics around the planes in the water in the early morning mist...look out for pods of Dolphins near the shore along the Campbell river coast too, it's also a beautiful drive along there with amazing scenery at every turn.
Bcadventure.com gives you a good idea of the wildlife about.
Not far from qualicum beach there's a wood called cathedral grove which is full,of huge trees over 800 years old and again worth a visit if your on that side of the island .
The royalbc museum in victoria is a good , interesting few hours if you like museums too.
For the bears and Eagles I had a7d and 18 -200 and 70-200 and 1.4 converter as that's all I had at the time, sometimes i could have done with a longer reach and other times the bears were so close that the 18-200 was too long and so would definitely have 2 bodies if you can..and you can't have enough memory cards .
I also made time to put the camera down sometimes because it's such a beautiful part of the world and to see the bears,otters,Eagles and herons so close, is really special.
Enjoy your trip.
 
Hi Steve, we did a similar trip backwards to the way you're going and not particularly for wildlife other than bears and whales.

I'm a little confused. Vancouver Island only has black bears generally and no brown Grizzlies. You can take tours to see them from Telegraph Cove but they cross the water to the mainland. We did quite a few whale tours from Tofino and Ucluelet. The ribs are hard to take shots from in open water. We did however see Orcas, sea otters and grey whales. We found telegraph cove a better base to catch a tour from. The waters are more sheltered and therefore more stable. We saw bald eagles and our favorites, the hump back whales as well as pods of Orcas. An amazing experience.

If you're hiking alone, make sure you are fully bear aware and know what to do in an encounter. On the mainland, we came face to face with an adolescent female black bear and tbh, we were scared as f*** even tho we knew she was very unlikely to attack (the thrill was incredible afterwards mind!). There are also treks that iirc are only open to hikers in groups due to local grizzly activity (you are not allowed to trek as a twosome). It is possible to go to the tourist info places and find where the grizzly activity is in the area. Black bears are more common everywhere and can be seen from the road if you keep your eyes peeled. Moose and Elk are also aplenty and quite amazing when seen in their own landscape. We never actually got to see a Grizzly in the wild and was our one regret despite several days touring around areas we knew they were active looking for them.

The whole area is incredible for all the reasons you know already. Lens wise I took a massive 400mm f2.8 as well as 70-200 and landscape lenses. We had hired a massive 4x4 too and kept on the move for 3 weeks. It as an awesome experience and unlike anywhere else in the world we have yet been to.

Happy to help if you need any more info however you can hardly go wrong with anything you do over there. Good luck and I'm extremely jealous!

Rich
 
Sorry rich ,meant black bears..Knights inlet is actually on the mainland but accessed from Vancouver Island..
 
My confusion - Black bears, not brown... But we are going up to Whistler and I've been told they can be seen on the Sea to Sky highway.

Well, I bought a new bag today and will be ordering the 150-600 next week. That way I can leave my 300 f4 at home (which, combined with a 1.4 EX is my mainstay in Wildlife work). Also purchased a 1GB portable hard drive today too. Bloody expensive this holiday lark !

Telegraph Cove is a bit further off than we were planning to go as we only have 2 weeks to try and cram it all in. I'm considering buying the Mrs a camera for her Birthday so she has her own to play with while we are away...
 
I was there 3 years ago and it's great- the trip was why I bought my first DSLR and how I wish I'd known more about how to use it. When you're at Campbell River there was a boat trip to Sturt (or Stuart) Island whioch is at Surge Narrows. Great for eagle shots as the tidal surge forces the fish to the surface and the eagles queue up to pick them out of the water the trip also covers whales and possibly bears- seen a few orca pods and a humpback whale but no bears on my trip. There were choices of boat from CAmpbell River but the trip we took was on a 'proper' boat, not a rib, which made it easier to move around and get images- the boat bucks a bit as the tidal surges cause small whirlpools and eddies to form constantly so faster shutter speed necessary- I also found that it was easy to blow out the white feathers on the eagles.

I thought Victoria was a beautiful city as was Vancouver.

Wish I was going
 
Watching this thread because the core of what you describe is what we have been thinking about for the last 4 years! Though a 2 week perioed sometime between the end of August to end of September was our time frame???

Vancouver & Vancouver Island majoring on the culture and the wildlife was what we had in mind all within a 'normal' 2 week break..............but everyone(?) also said do not forget the likes of places in the Rockies, seemed to me that ion two weeks there was no way to include the lot without making it all too much of "must pack it all in" sort of trip ~ it is supposed to be a holiday :LOL:
 
Box Brownie said:
Watching this thread because the core of what you describe is what we have been thinking about for the last 4 years! Though a 2 week perioed sometime between the end of August to end of September was our time frame???

Vancouver & Vancouver Island majoring on the culture and the wildlife was what we had in mind all within a 'normal' 2 week break..............but everyone(?) also said do not forget the likes of places in the Rockies, seemed to me that ion two weeks there was no way to include the lot without making it all too much of "must pack it all in" sort of trip ~ it is supposed to be a holiday :LOL:
Click to expand...

Ideally 3 weeks would allow you to spend some time in the Rockies too. If you want to go at that time of year you may have to book 18-24 months i advance, the Salmon run is around that time and it gets very busy (so I've been told). We're away for both our wedding anniversary and my wife's Birthday, which is why we often travel at that time of year, otherwise I'd be there for the Salmon too :rolleyes:
 
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