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UVic alumni Maureen Gordon, BA in Creative Writing ’94, and Kevin Smith, BA in Geography and Environmental Studies ’96, are co-owners of . The two have helped visitors tour BC and Alaska’s coast for over 35 years and now have three vessels: the Maple Leaf, the Swell and the Cascadia—a sailing ship, tugboat and catamaran. They lead visitors to places like Gwaii Haanas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Haida Gwaii, on expedition cruises along 1,000 kilometres of wild coastline.

We asked Gordon and Smith for some top tips and insights on adventure travel in BC.

Minimizing environmental impact of travel

What are some of the main ways adventure travel has changed over the decades?

MG: When I first started working with Kevin in 2001, people I knew would look at me as if we were crazy to take people into the Great Bear Rainforest or Haida Gwaii by boat. Now, far more travellers are interested in sustainable travel and locally guided experiences that are off the beaten track. And expedition cruising, which is adventure travel, not classic cruising, is one of fastest growing areas of interest in tourism. Also: Our guests are much more interested in the Indigenous culture than they were 15 years ago.

What should I consider if I want to minimize my environmental impact when I travel?

Ask yourself is the company that you’re booking with actually doing positive work to regenerate the area you’re travelling? Will you be greeted as part of the mass-tourism problem by the locals or greeted with respect because your hosts are doing it right? Is the size of what you’re participating in the proper scale for the place that you’re in? If you’re going to fly somewhere, see if you can stay longer and have more experiences, rather than flying more times in a year for the same number of experiences.

Top five

Name five amazing things you’ve witnessed on your ecotourism trips.

1. While the UNESCO World Heritage site on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii is incredible and moving, actually exploring Gwaii Haanas with our Haida guides and seeing the natural systems through their perspective is really transformative.
2. Seeing humpback whales aggressively defend sea lions from orcas, while we were in a tender, was unbelievable.
3. Watching grizzly-bear mothers lie down in front of us to nurse cubs, in a place where a few years before they hid from trophy hunters before British Columbians got that banned.
4. I guess we need to list the rare, white spirit bear and perhaps the most amazing was the first one Kevin saw in 2001, just months after he’d finished negotiating on the Great Bear Rainforest agreement that protected that bear’s forest from being clear-cut.
5. Listening to and watching a dozen humpback whales coordinate and then do bubblenet feeding, and hearing their underwater calls rise through the hydrophone on our quiet deck, and then the explosion of their huge mouths rising from the sea and silvery fish leaping away from them.

Be prepared

What are some ways to reconcile the desire to travel with the need for conservation?

I believe the future of tourism is regenerative travel. What that means is that a travel experience has a symbiotic relationship with the place it operates… It gives back more than it takes. So learning about what regenerative travel is, and asking for it helps the idea to spread and this will change our reality to care for our planet and its people. In the decades we have been doing this we have seen so much change in people’s awareness and desire to know their trip is good for the place they visit. It’s only going to get more so—but we need to keep asking for it every day.

What are three things you always pack for a trip into the wilderness?

1. Excellent rain gear
2. Camera gear
3. Bear spray 

How should  I prepare for a trip into BC’s wilderness?

Your preparation will vary depending on whether you are arranging your own trip or going with professional guides. Many of the places we operate our trips are considered “backcountry,” which requires DIY adventurers to have skill and experience with navigation, wilderness survival, first aid, wildlife behaviour, expedition planning, interpretation of weather, tides, currents, charts, bathymetry and more, as well as requires good gear, redundant systems, proper food and permits and more.

If you are going with a guide, I would follow all the recommendations for packing but also, importantly, prepare your mindset. 

Impact of UVic

How did your UVic experiences help prepare you for this venture?

KS: My degree is in Geography with a speciality in coastal-resource management, and Environmental Studies. Prior to Maple Leaf Adventures, I negotiated for five years on the Great Bear Rainforest land-use plan, which was absolutely transformative. That was a direct application of my degree experience and in considering the highest and best use for the land, among many other elements of geography. From that came the idea of building a conservation-based economy on the coast. And as an expedition leader and leader of an ecotourism company, I use mapping, physical geography, social geography and concepts from environmentally minded thinking every day.

MG: A sustainable tourism company that focuses on natural ecosystems and cultural history, and that is by its nature a change-maker, has a lot of facets. So there are many facets of my experience at UVic in the early 1990s that I draw on in this venture. Both the Environmental Studies program and History classes—one class in particular, which was Ken Coates’ Native-White Relations and the North—helped me build a world view to understand the societal landscape and changes we work in, and how we can make change. My Creative Writing courses, as well as my experience in the co-op program among newspapers and small businesses, prepared me for a lot of the communications aspects of my role. We do a lot of education and clear communication is key for that. And a systems-theory course I had in Environmental Studies helps me see and understand how our mindsets and other systems here are changing.

How has travel changed you?

MG: I think travel illustrates that there are many ways to live, many potential lives to have, so I can keep a resilient perspective and not be so attached to things or the way life is at the moment. It’s also made me a protector of our natural world, because I see how rare the natural bounty is that we have here on the coast. And of course I like to think it has made me a wiser person!

—Jenny Manzer, BA '97

This article appears in the UVic Torch alumni magazine.

For more Torch stories, go to the UVic Torch alumni magazine page.