Our Company
History & Experience
Ocean Light Adventures has been offering eco-adventures on the northern BC coast for over 33 years. It is owned by Jenn Broom and operated by a dedicated core group of like-minded family and friends. We cater to small groups and offer very personalized tours. We have always focused exclusively on the wilds of the BC Coast and our extensive knowledge and experience in the region is unparalleled. Our current program has been shaped by our desire to be part of the effort to preserve our beautiful coast. We strongly believe that as we expose more and more people to the wildlife and beauty that surrounds us in this spectacular wilderness the momentum to preserve it will also grow.
Ocean Light Adventures was the creation of Tom Ellison, a master mariner and advocate of wild places and wild animals, who began offering trips in 1979 to the magical, mystical islands of Haida Gwaii. The islands were under the threat of logging and he joined the successful campaign to see the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park. Each and every year we continue to be surprised by the beauty and diversity of these islands during our summer Gwaii Haanas (Queen Charlotte Islands) Aboard the Afterglow I .
In 1987, we joined forces with the Valhalla Society to help save the grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen Valley. The creation of Canada’s first grizzly sanctuary in 1992 meant the bears would forever be safe in their ancestral home. In the late 80’s bear viewing in BC was new and Ocean Light Adventures was integral in developing a bear viewing program for the coast with the guidance of bear biologist, Wayne McCrory and bear expert, Charlie Russell. We’re proud to have been the pioneers of professionally guided bear tours and our spring Grizzlies of the Khutzeymateen tour is a direct outcome of this early conservation work.
From the Khutzeymateen we moved south into the Great Bear Rainforest and joined forces again with the Valhalla Society – this time in the campaign to save the territory of the Spirit Bear. We soon discovered that the Great Bear Rainforest had far more to offer beyond the rare Spirit Bear, including migrating salmon, black bears, grizzly bears, wolves and whales and more. Our autumn Great Bear Rainforest Explorer adventure grew directly out of this work.
The Ocean Light Philosophy
Our goal has always been to provide opportunities to our guests for self exploration. We run tours with small intimate groups and use the comfortable motor vessel Afterglow as a vehicle to get you to fantastic places where you can get onshore to move about, explore, photograph, or just soak in the beauty that surrounds you. We aim to provide experiences that are new and unique and in doing so we help our guests fulfill their own dreams. We want our adventures to be participatory so that everyone becomes an integral part of the adventure and gets involved to the level which suits them best.
Our focus has always been on the environment. We pride ourselves on no- to low-impact travel and aim to leave places as we found them or better. We also hope that by increasing people’s awareness, we will be able to preserve our trees, fish, bears and other wildlife that make coastal BC such a unique and spectacular destination.
Along with a strong environmental ethic, safety has always been a top priority for us. We make all our minute-by-minute decisions and base our itineraries with safety foremost in mind.
Relationships
Ocean Light Adventures is grateful to live, work and have relationships with people from across many traditional and unceded territories covering many Coastal regions of British Columbia. Ocean Light Adventures respects the sovereignty, lands, histories, languages, knowledge systems and cultures of all First Nations. We are currently in discussions with our local First Nations to strengthen our relationships and foster collaboration for the future.
