Offering bear-viewing and wilderness holidays for the curious, intrepid and wild-at-heart. (With gentler options available too.) Hosted by one of Canada’s top bear guides.
As featured on New Lives in the Wild with Ben Fogle, in The Sunday Times, the FT, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Travel & Leisure and the Wall Street Journal.
Wild Bear Lodge is a small, intimate wilderness lodge that offers four and eight-night holidays in May-June and October.
It is the home of Julius Strauss, a renowned bear guide and war correspondent, who has spent the past 18 years living off-grid in bear country. He will host you and still does much of the guiding.
The lodge is located deep in the British Columbia interior where few tourists ever go. Yet it is easily accessible – only a scenic day’s drive from Calgary, Vancouver or Spokane in the US.
During the day we take our guests on walks and 4×4 drives deep into remote valleys and into ancient old-growth forests to watch grizzly and black bears as well as other Canadian megafauna.
We tailor our trips to the season and our guests’ appetite for adventure and exertion. For some a gentle stroll in the forest to a viewpoint is enough, with others we hike or snowshoe several miles into the sub-alpine.
In the evenings we gather around a log fire in our lodge, fashioned by local craftsmen from wood and glass, for a drink, a chat, and a sumptuous meal cooked by our in-house chef.
After dinner we sometimes head for the sauna and hot tub, which is suspended over our wilderness river and gives out over one of the best views in western Canada.
Or we give a presentation on bear behaviour, Canada’s megafauna, or nature-related topics.
We pride ourselves on our rugged professionalism, versatility, and our perfect safety record. We offer old-fashioned hospitality but also high-tech modern amenities.
Each guest or couple is given their own riverside log cabin with a wood-burning stove. There is high-speed internet in each cabin, tea, coffee, slippers, hot showers, fresh towels, binoculars and a bird guide.
Wild Bear Lodge is a bit different from other wilderness lodges in Canada. For one we are very small and usually only have a maximum of eight guests at a time.
We do not aim to offer the sort of globalised brochure experience that international five-star hotels provide.
We believe in hospitality that is warm, real and personal and wilderness experiences that are absolutely authentic.
Nothing is staged or scripted and we do not use man-made or natural attractants to draw in wildlife.
One of the biggest compliments we have had is that we treat those that book with us not like paying customers but treasured house guests.
That said we also offer a far greater degree of privacy than most lodges. Each guest or couple is given their own riverside cabin separated from the others.
Some of our guests return season after season from as far away as the United Kingdom or Australia. One large family booked out the entire place for four days several years in a row.
Conservation and charity projects are part of our lifeblood.
Our signature conservation achievement was spearheading a successful campaign to end grizzly bear hunting in British Columbia.
We have also taken part in a ground-breaking science project to develop facial recognition for grizzly bears.
Most recently the lodge has initiated a programme for wounded military veterans and combat medics from different parts of the world.
The FT, the Sunday Times, and the Guardian have all written about the experiences we offer.
A four-night holiday with us begins at C$3,280. They are everything-inclusive except 5% tax. We can accommodate most ages and fitness levels.
