Giving Back to the Wild
For many years now, we have run our Wild Bear Fund. It is a way of using our small business to support charity projects that we bring to life and run ourselves. We take $100 from each of our guests (included in the price) to provide seed funding for these initiatives.
Banning Grizzly Hunting
Perhaps our proudest moment was when, after a five-year campaign, we managed to end grizzly bear hunting in British Columbia in 2017. The effort was a collective one and involved other groups, but Wild Bear Lodge ran the political lobbying campaign that was key to its success.
A Path to Healing
Our Wild Bear Vets programmes are designed to pass on wilderness skills to injured military veterans recovering from serious physical or mental wounds.
We ran the first for British and Canadian veterans in 2021, and the second, for injured Ukrainian veterans and combat medics, in 2024. The goal is simple: give veterans a clear sense of purpose and the space to heal in the wild. We plan to grow the programme so more veterans can experience its impact.
Studying Grizzlies
Since 2016, we have been working with the Bear ID Project and another bear-viewing lodge to help develop facial recognition software for grizzlies, an initiative that should allow for better conservation of their population. The project has received federal science funding and earned a write-up in the New York Times.
