Bella Coola - and the river

It is great to be back in Bella Coola. This is the focus of our Wild Earth Adventures. There is no place quite like it - none that I have ever found. It has a feeling of remoteness that is rare...and a wildness still exists here that is even rarer.

A dead end road called the Freedom Highway leads to an ancient indigenous village, a place surrounded by snow capped mountains, shrouded in temperate rainforest, on the edge of what has become known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Grizzly bears roam the forests, salmon fill the rivers, ancient petroglyphs carved into the rocks with imposing granite peaks all around. This place is genuine wilderness, far from the chaos of modern life.

We have just run the Bella Coola river with Coast Mountain Lodge. The lodge help to compliment our backcountry adventures with a river drift on one of the rivers in Bella Coola Valley. Fraser and Holly, the owners, run a fantastic lodge and day tours throughout the valley. As likeminded guides and freinds, we love working closely with them to provide the best alround multiday adventure trips in the Central Coast region of BC.

At the start of the season we drift the main artery of the valley which is the Bella Coola river. This is a chance for Coast Mountain Lodge to induct their new guides to the local surroundings and sights of interest. The river is class 1 for the most part and class 2 on occassion depending on water levels. It is not a white water experience but exciting enough and a gives a great perspective of the valley. It is a good chance to see wildlife, in particular bald eagles and bears. The Bella Coola river can be paddled in open canoe in one very long day or split over two days, as we like to do. It is always worth noting that the log jams on the upper section of the river make this trip a very serious undertaking and not to be done without previous white water canoeing experience and rescue skills.