The Maple Leaf, sailing in the company of killer whales, BC. Photo (c) Jose Larochelle / Maple Leaf Adventures

From a chance turn off a New Zealand highway, to a community choir performance, to an encounter with beach garbage …unexpected aha! moments have inspired travelers to make a difference.

Now, on World Oceans Day, if you’ve shared your story about such a pivotal moment, you could make a difference for yourself, too: by winning a spectacular multi-day Whales and Totems adventure cruise in the Broughton Archipelago, off northern Vancouver Island, and the opportunity to blog about it.

Just head to the Living Oceans Society’s website, find the “The Way I Sea It” contest, and write up to 300 words on what inspired you to make a difference in the world.

The examples above are real-life moments shared by participants in this Canada-wide contest, organized and sponsored by Living Oceans Society, and co-sponsored by Victoria-based adventure cruise company Maple Leaf Adventures. Entry deadline is June 5 and the winner will be announced June 8, 2011.

“All across Canada, many people are working to make a difference, big and small,” says Jennifer Lash, Executive Director of Living Oceans Society, a BC marine conservation organization. “We wanted to acknowledge and reward people with a chance to win an ocean adventure in our own backyard.” Living Oceans Society is based in Sointula, a tiny fishing village on Malcolm Island in the Broughton Archipelago.

The prize trip includes cruising and sailing the islands of the Broughton Archipelago, viewing killer whales, humpback whales, sea lions and other wildlife, visits to Alert Bay, and explorations of remote beaches and rainforest. A gourmet chef prepares all meals and snacks, the onboard naturalist makes the world come alive, and the classic schooner Maple Leaf provides warmth, comfort and excellent access to the natural world. Maple Leaf’s trips are rated a “Best Travel Experience” by Frommer’s Canada.

“As an ecotourism business, we make our living from strong communities and healthy ecosystems on the BC/Alaska coast,” said Maple Leaf Adventures president Kevin Smith. “We believe strongly in giving back and we love the idea of a website where people share their inspiring stories.”

For details and to enter the contest, go to www.livingoceans.org/thewayiseait/ and share your story in 300 words or less. Then, get friends and family to show their support by voting for your entry. Judges will choose a winner from the five contestants with the most votes. Stories will be judged based on creativity and originality, writing style, and relevance to the contest topic. Contest closes Sunday, June 5 and the winner will be announced on June 8, World Oceans Day.

Legal information: No purchase necessary. Residents of Canada excluding Quebec are eligible to enter. The prize is a trip for one person from Vancouver to Port McNeil with Maple Leaf Adventures worth approx. $3,875, and the opportunity to write two to five blog posts (possibly with photos and/or videos) for Living Oceans Society. To enter, contestants must clearly write a short story and be one of the five contestants to get the most votes. Judges will choose one contest winner from the five contestants with the most votes. The contest closes on June 5, 2011. The winner will be announced on June 8, 2011. See contest rules for details.

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About Living Oceans Society
Living Oceans Society is a leader in the effort to protect Canada’s Pacific coast. Based in Sointula, a small fishing village on the Central Coast of British Columbia, Living Oceans Society is the largest organization in Canada focusing exclusively on marine conservation. Living Oceans Society is currently working to achieve
• A management plan that reflects the people who work and live on the coast
• A networks of marine protected areas to support abundant sea life
• Sustainable ecosystem based fisheries
• Healthy oceans free of the risk from oil spills, salmon aquaculture, and other industrial activities

About Maple Leaf Adventures
Maple Leaf Adventures has been offering boutique adventure cruises in B.C. and Alaska since 1986. Our trips are multi-day expeditions aboard the 92-foot schooner Maple Leaf in the coast’s spectacular fjords and archipelagos, most inaccessible except by water. Destinations include Haida Gwaii, the Great Bear Rainforest, southeast Alaska and Vancouver Island/Gulf Islands. Maple Leaf Adventures has been rated one of the top adventure travel companies on earth by National Geographic Adventure, and its trips listed as a “Best Travel Experience” by Frommer’s, and one of Canada’s top 5 guided trips by Explore. Maple Leaf Adventures is an ecotourism company and donates at least 1% of all trip sales to conservation. For more information, please call +1-250-386-7245 / 888-599-5323 or visit www.MapleLeafAdventures.com.

For information on our whale watching trips in the inside passage, see these pages:

• Inside Passage Whale Watching Cruise (summer 2012)
• Whales & Totems of Vancouver Island/ Great Bear Rainforest (every year)
• Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) Tour (every year)
• Alaska Adventure Small Ship Cruise (every year)

Kevin Smith

For a moment, I want you to put aside all that you know and feel about the sport hunting of bears.

Put aside the ethics, the emotions and the images of bear hunting. Believe me, I do understand all the strong feelings associated with the hunt; I have been involved with these conversations in B.C. on every level.  From the official land use planning tables to the heated dockside disagreement, from the downtown boardroom to the up-coast estuary, this is one of the most emotionally charged issues on the B.C. coast.

You can waste hours, months, and years sitting at a table and talking in circles about the appropriateness of a person with hired guide, high-powered rifle, and half-mile scope setting one foot out of their boat onto the mud of a coastal estuary and killing a bear, and arguing about whether that is ethical, sustainable or “sporting.”

Instead, I want you to think about the business case.

I am a businessman, and my growing business is part of a growing industry called bear viewing. What if we get rid of all the emotional baggage and simply look at the almighty dollar and the irrefutable bottom line? In 2010 is a bear worth more living or shot dead?

Grizzly bear viewing: a renewable and far larger economic driver

The Market Opportunity

Eco-adventure tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world’s travel economy. Adventure travel grows 10% each year worldwide. In 2008, the Adventure Travel Trade association estimated spending on adventure travel worldwide at $150 billion. At 10% growth per year, that will be $300 billion by 2015.

Demographic trends and a growing eco-savvyness of travelers means that environmentally sustainable and ethical adventure travel are increasingly the options people seek.

We’ll get to some local statistics in a moment, but let’s first consider the big picture.

Wilderness trips and wildlife viewing trips grow in popularity each year, with Costa Rican eco-lodges, Africa safaris, and Galapagos wildlife viewing trips just three well-known examples.  These high quality tourism opportunities support award-winning businesses; employees and communities take great pride in the natural wealth they have to share with their visitors.

A curious grizzly bear

Here in B.C., we have one of the world’s last places to see wild bears in their beautiful natural habitat. This is of growing interest to adventure travelers.

And, it provides a unique offering for B.C., helping to establish its “position” in the adventure travel market, so that a B.C. industry, operated by B.C. owners and employing B.C. residents, may prosper.

This is the opportunity we have as a province.

What Is the Bear Viewing Industry?

Bear viewing is a segment of the wilderness tourism industry.

We take people into spectacular wilderness areas – such as verdant meadows at the mouths of rivers framed by the mountains, fjords and rainforest of the B.C. coast. Here, we guide small groups of people to amazing sightings of grizzly, black and spirit bears exhibiting their natural behaviour: fishing for salmon, training cubs to swim, playing, and so on.

Naturalist Sherry Kirkvold introducing bear meadows to our guests

We have expert naturalists who explain bears and their world to our guests. Our guests take thousands of photos – each.

There are different types of bear viewing businesses, from day-trippers going to viewing stands, to lodges in the rainforest, to 75-foot boats like ours who offer multi-day cruises in wilderness areas, to $3,000-per-night fishing lodges that promote and offer bear viewing as an amenity.

This is a high-value industry. We offer a hard-to-get wilderness experience that is highly sought, and described by many as the “experience of a lifetime”. It is expensive for us to provide, and I estimate that at least 80 cents of every dollar we earn is rolled right into the B.C. economy in the form of wages, trip operations, maintenance, supplies, permits and other expenses. These businesses are also almost 100% B.C.-owned.

This industry is based on a “renewable” resource: great viewings of healthy, wild bears. It is low impact and thrives in areas where conservation of natural areas is in place. In fact, it is a poster child for the “conservation economy” in the Great Bear Rainforest. It is sustainable over the long term, based not on a boom-and-bust model but one of steady, long-term use.

Economic Comparison of Bear Viewing Vs. Trophy Hunting

In 2003, Integral Economics conducted a study that compared the economic impact of the then-nascent bear viewing industry in B.C. with that of the industry that offers a commercial hunt and kill of grizzly bears for trophies (not food).

At this time, the bear viewing industry was extremely young. Many businesses were just getting started. The number of multi-day adventure cruises featuring bear viewing could probably have been counted on one hand. I know because I run one of them and knew everyone else. Yet, at that time, the researchers found that for ecotourism operations involving grizzly viewing, total revenues directly attributable to the presence of grizzlies were then approximately $6.1 million annually.

Guide outfitting operations with a grizzly hunt component, in comparison, generated only about $3.3 million dollars from grizzly hunting activities.

In fact, a single bear viewing business at that time generated as much revenue as all grizzly hunt companies combined!

Maple Leaf president Kevin Smith, as a park ranger in 1996, arresting trophy hunters illegally poaching bears

Bear Viewing Growth

Let’s fast forward a few years.

In 2005, Tourism B.C. and the Wilderness Tourism Association of B.C. catalogued a 32% growth rate in nature-based tourism in B.C. since 2001. That’s an annual growth rate of 8%.

While statistics are not available for the growth of the bear-viewing segment of this industry, it is our industry association’s observation that bear viewing has mushroomed since 2003.

On the coast alone, not even taking the interior into the picture, I have witnessed an enormous growth of small and medium sized businesses offering new bear viewing opportunities as part of their companies’ tourism options.  There are dozens and dozens.

The demand for bear viewing on my company’s expedition cruises is way up. It is also up on trips offered by our colleagues in the industry. Entirely new organizations have created successful bear viewing vacations and programs since then. Anecdotes I have heard show that at least several operators have more demand than they have capacity.  So they are seeking investment and expanding operations.

Most of this growth seems to have occurred in areas where bears have sanctuary from hunters. After spending two decades working with and around bears, I know that they are smarter than we typically give them credit for; and I think they figure out pretty quickly that bear viewers are to be respected but, since they just sit there and click cameras, not terrified of.

If we take the 32% growth rate in wilderness tourism in B.C. from 2001 to 2005 and extrapolate that to the bear viewing industry revenue numbers, that would give a bear viewing industry in 2005 of $8 million, in 2015 of $16 million and in 2025 of $32 million.

All of this illustrates a very healthy past and future growth rate for bear viewing businesses in B.C., provided that the bears are not persecuted.

Contrast this with the steady decline in interest in sport hunting of bears.  When the last time you met anybody that was planning a trophy hunting holiday?  But what about someone buying a new camera for a trip that included wildlife viewing?

The benefit of stopping the commercial trophy hunt

But wait, a few folks in the minority say, why not keep the hunt and bear viewing? (Note that actually 80% of British Columbians oppose the hunt so this should be viewed in that light).

Well, here are the reasons that the hunt is bad for our business.

First, bears don’t like to be shot and it should come as no surprise that in areas where this still happens, the bear viewing is bad. No bear viewing business can prosper in those areas, because – like all businesses – tourism needs a degree of certainty to survive.

In contrast, when Raincoast Conservation Society (who became fed up with the endless bureaucratic stonewalling on the trophy hunt) bought a guide outfitter territory, thereby ended the killing of grizzlies in that territory, we saw a resurgence in visible grizzly bears in the area. Suddenly at least ten businesses could plan on fantastic bear viewing for guests there.

Second, if you are killing bears, you are exterminating the resource. It seems obvious. You shoot a bear, it’s gone. So we can’t view it. (But if we view it one day, we or another bear viewing group can come back the next day, and the next week, and the next year, and the next decade and view it again.)

Third, there are safety issues. Imagine a group of bear viewing guests arriving in an estuary the day after a hunter shot and missed or merely injured a bear.

And fourth, it’s actually better economically to promote the bear viewing, not bear killing, industry.

The 2003 Integral study predicted that, if trophy hunting of grizzly bears were stopped and bear viewing opportunities therefore increased (bears not running away and hiding; more bears around, in additional locations), that an annual growth rate of bear viewing of about 4% would completely offset the loss of economic activity in B.C. due to the end of the trophy hunt.

That is eminently achievable given the growth of interest in eco-adventure tourism we’ve seen already.

A Professional, Responsible Industry

I need to say a little bit about the bear viewing industry here. All of us are so busy that we have spent little time promoting what we have achieved together.

In 2001, several B.C. ecotourism companies including my own founded the Commercial Bear Viewing Association of B.C. Our purpose is to develop a responsible, sustainable bear viewing industry. This includes properly trained and certified guides, who are very familiar with bear biology and behaviour, as well as with managing humans around bears, and managing impact on bears and the carrying capacity of their habitat.

In conjunction with expert bear biologists, we developed Assistant and Full Bear Guide training and certification programs, and have trained dozens of assistant bear guides to date. We have certified 12 veteran B.C. guides with the “full guide” status.

We also developed a Code of Conduct for operators. All of these achievements are informed by science and by the ethic that we must responsibly steward the “resource” which gives us our living: wild bears and their habitat.

As a result, we give generously to conservation, restoration and research projects, and we support local communities.

A Green, Made-in-BC Industry: the “Conservation Economy”

Perhaps we have done this because we live here. We are business owners that are not to stuffy to say publicly that we love the land and the wildlife that lives on it.  We make no apologies for being passionate about this incredible coast we call home.

Our industry is clean and all-around positive. It doesn’t harm the environment. What’s more, it actually benefits from the protection of bears, forests and salmon.

Certainly, tourism has not always had a positive impact as it was developed across the globe. But in B.C., we are creative newcomers, and have learned what not to do from other jurisdictions’ mistakes.

In contrast, bear hunting is a resource-extractive, intensive industry, like clear-cut logging of ancient forest. It’s cut-and-run, boom-and-bust cycle leaves little behind, which is terrible for this coast. Yet, in the case of logging, it was often hard to see other viable options.

However, bear hunting has a very profitable, sustainable, and popular alternative: as we have seen, bear viewing grosses far more than trophy hunting already, and we are just getting started!

The boom and bust cycle of take it (or kill it) all, and then try to blame somebody else while you wonder where your next pay cheque is coming from, can be broken.

Industries like bear viewing bring long-term, sustainably produced dollars into the province.

The “Take-Home” Message

Here is what I hope you will remember:

• We have an opportunity as a province of promoting a unique, high-value industry for our people: bear viewing.
• The bear viewing industry in B.C. will experience positive growth by ending the commercial trophy hunt.
• The benefits of this growth will quickly outstrip any costs to B.C. of ending the hunt.
• It’s an industry developed and run by British Columbians, and for which we have a unique competitive position in the world.
• It’s green and it is a viable, attractive industry that actually benefits from, rather than conflicts with, conservation.
• This is a keystone in the burgeoning B.C. conservation economy and it promotes B.C. favourably in the world.

How can you argue? This is a powerful reason to end the trophy hunt. These bears are wanted – alive.

Want to do/learn more?

• Read about Great Bear Rainforest tours with Maple Leaf  Adventures.
• Read about how Raincoast Conservation Foundation is buying guide outfitter licenses to help this cause.
• Sign a petition to the BC government asking for an end to commercial trophy hunting.

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Kevin J. Smith is one of twelve certified Full Bear (viewing) Guides in B.C. He has over twenty years experience working with and around bears. He has a degree in resource management from the University of Victoria, and is a vice-president of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association of B.C. An ecotourism entrepreneur, he is the president of Maple Leaf Adventures, where on the platform of the classic schooner Maple Leaf, he leads small groups of guests on bear viewing expedition cruises in the Great Bear Rainforest each year.

Image (c) Sherry Kirkvold

We’ve been sharing information about the threats to wild salmon (and therefore to wilderness tourism) for years now. This week, two significant things occurred:

1. Independent consultant Dr. Andrew Wright released his investigation into the economic feasibility of closed containment salmon farms on land, and found there is a significant economic return.This refutes what the Norwegian salmon farming companies (who practise open net pen salmon farming which is a proven threat to wild salmon) have always said in the past. We love that Andrew took a businessman + engineer’s perspective on this and investigated. Not sure why the net-pen salmon farming businesses didn’t show that kind of vision and initiative years ago.You can read more here.
2. Maureen went to the Get Out Salmon Migration walk + rally in Victoria. Here thousands of people from all walks of life, from wilderness and whale watching tourism businesses, to First Nations communities, to fishing families, to elected government officials, to concerned citizens of all kinds, gathered in a positive and inspiring way to show their support for getting open net salmon farms out of BC waters.You can read more here.

Tourism Victoria recognized the hard work and extra expense that we at Maple Leaf put toward protecting and promoting the natural world on this coast.

It’s a decision we make because this beautiful world provides our livelihood, and provides so much pleasure and rejuvenation to us and our guests. And also just because it is the right thing to do.

But it’s an honour to have that recognized and we thank Tourism Victoria for placing an emphasis on the environment with this award.

You can read about it here:

Kevin Smith and Maureen Gordon in the wheelhouse - Photo by Debra Brash, Victoria Times Colonist

This article appeared in the Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times Colonist business sections this week. Thanks, Darron Kloster, for your interest!

By Darron Kloster, Canwest News Service

Tourism in general may be hurting, but niche operators like Kevin Smith and Maureen Gordon are battening down the hatches for another record season.

The owners and skippers of the Maple Leaf — a former longliner turned tourist tall ship — set sail on their first excursion of the season this week into the Gulf Islands and up the coast.

They’re carrying eight passengers on an eco-friendly journey to the Great Bear Rain Forest and another eight on a return trip. It’s a mix of Canadians and Americans who shelled out more than $2,600 Cdn each for the sailing experience, wildlife viewing, cultural exchanges with first nations, fishing and the perennial highlight of listening to whales through on-board stereo via hydrophone.

Read the rest of the article here.