Jamie's Whaling Station & Adventure Centres

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Jamie's Whaling Station & Adventure Centres

Jamie's Whaling Station & Adventure Centres Authentic, family-friendly eco-adventures since 1982. Ask us about our guaranteed sightings policy!
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Operating in the pristine coastal environments of both Tofino and Ucluelet, Jamie’s Whaling Station has been captivating adventure seekers from around the world since 1982! Our waters boast grey and humpback whales, transient orcas, sea otters at play, seals, porpoise, sea lions and every tour offers engaging commentary by our experienced and knowledgeable crew. We also offer bear watching, tours

to Hot Springs Cove, kayaking, scenic flights, hiking, sunset cruises and beach drop-offs. We have the largest fleet in the area, including comfortable large cabin cruisers and high-speed, state-of-the-art 29’ zodiacs. We have gift shops at both locations, lots of free parking, including Motorhome/RV parking, and complimentary dog kennels too!

11/27/2024

There’s a direct relationship between the kelp population and Sea Otters.
One of the Sea Otter’s favorite meals are sea urchins, and these echinoderms feed from kelp. By keeping the urchin population low, kelp population stays at healthy levels.

🦦 We have daily departures for our Otters and Inlets tour, book through our website Jamies.com or give us a call at 250-725-3919.

09/25/2024

Throwback to a special day in August.

It started as any normal crazy summer day…

Just goes to show that out here on the west coast, it pays to have an open mind, spidey senses and a quick draw!
📸 Celine (Jamies’s Skipper/Naturalist)

09/20/2024

September = abundance! Exactly displayed on this recent bear tour. The cover picture is a mother bear with a nice quality ‘chest blaze’. We saw this individual with her 2 cubs in Cigarette Cove in Barkley Sound. 25% of Vancouver Island black bears are born with chest blazes but they usually fade later in life.

📸: Jamie’s Team

09/05/2024

August was amazing! 🖐🏽🎤⬇️

These orca pictures were taken on a tour from Ucluelet on August, 22nd.

Orcas like the Barkley Sound as there are lots of small islands that harbour seals frequent. We saw orcas 6 different days in August, and on another afternoon, our trip witnessed a prolonged hunt that ended unsuccessfully as the seals stayed hauled out on one of the George Fraser Islands until the killer whales abandoned the mission.

September… we are ready!

📸 Christoph Randler (orcas); Jamie’s Team (seals)

08/24/2024

We encountered this strikingly adorable creature with a larger raft of males on one of our Sea Otter Watching Tours from Tofino.

Sea Otters have some of the densest ‘underfur’ in the animal kingdom, measuring in at ~100,000 hairs per square centimetre!
📸 Colin Crystal Photography

08/17/2024

Lunging into the weekend with a few beautiful shots from our friend Colin Crystal. Slide 1 is a fabulous capture of a lunge feed followed by a fluke sequence. August has been rich with humpback sightings from our Ucluelet location and Tofino (when boats have been able to get offshore). Looking forward to an abundance of wildlife as we approach September!
📸Colin Crystal Photography

08/01/2024

If Wildlife Olympic Games were a thing, Vancouver Island black bears would be atop the podium in a few different events….Gold across the board in Looking Cuddly and Extreme Eating. They would also compete well in Tree Climbing, Hill Running and Rock Flipping.

August is training for fall Hyperphagia, where-in they aim to consume 20,000 calories per day. *Insert flex emoji here*

📸 (IG)

07/28/2024

Groom…eat…repeat….

How else do you think these blubberless marine mammals keep warm?! It is imperative they keep their fur clean and aerated for insulation and they have a super fast, calorically demanding metabolism that they fuel with a variety of invertebrates including clams, octopi and urchins.

Have you joined one of our Sea Otter Watching Tours from Jamie’s Tofino location?
📸 Celine (Jamie’s Skipper/Naturalist - Slide 1/2)
📸 Juan Ceballos (Slide 3-6)

07/21/2024

It’s World Ocra Month, right!?

We didn’t get to see them on World Orca Day. But we got to see them the day after on July 15th, in the Barkley Sound, on trips departing our Ucluelet location. 🙌🏼🙏

*these are throwbacks, though…Oct 30th, 2019.

📸 Gergy P (Jamie’s Skipper/Naturalist)

07/15/2024

Happy World Orca Day! Orcas are the largest dolphin in the world and they are also the most widely distributed of all the whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The most common population of orcas we see on our tours are called Transients (aka Bigg’s). They specifically prey on marine mammals and can take down a sea lion as large as 1100kgs! Orcas do not interbreed with neighbouring populations and communicate with different dialects.

📸 Celine (Jamie’s Skipper/Naturalist)

07/05/2024

Recent early morning bear tours have been spectacular!

Did you know British Columbia has more subspecies of black bears than anywhere else in Canada!? This staggering diversity is due to glaciation within the province 18,000 years ago, which isolated different populations. The subspecies name for bears on Vancouver Island and larger adjacent islands is Ursus americanus vancouveri.

There are an estimated 7000 black bears on Vancouver Island!

📸 Juan Ceballos

06/28/2024

Schools out for summer! And so are the animals! Here are a few of our favourites viewed on a wildly successful Bear Watching Tour from our Tofino location on the calm waters of the Clayoquot Sound! Trips out here are like opening a box of chocolates from Chocolate Tofino…. You never know what you might find. Possibly, even a single scoop waffle cone! This June Bear Watching trip is in the running for best of the year. 📸 Jess and Fredde (Jamie’s Naturalists)

06/20/2024

We often get asked “will I see wildlife on a trip to the hot springs?” …Short answer:

Tours to this remote area are through an extremely rich natural environment and there is always a chance of seeing the animals featured in this post.

However, we can’t deviate off course to go view a gaggle of humpbacks reported to be 8k offshore. Nor can we hang out with Paw’zy the sea otter (slide 8)for hours on end. We have other tours for that!

The goal of this boat ride is to get you to trailhead on time, providing ample time to walk to the pools and enjoy a soak.

Still have questions? No problem. Our knowledgeable staff will gladly help.

📸 (IG)

06/13/2024

These little rascals are about 6 months old and were only 400g at birth.

Born during hibernation, cubs will continue to nurse and when they leave the den in the spring, they will be 3-5kg. They are quite vulnerable in their first year and momma bear will protect them until after a second hibernation when they usually venture out into the wilderness alone by the start of summer.

Female cubs may overlap ranges with their mother, but male cubs eventually venture further afield. So many fun facts about these phenomenal animals…& our naturalists know them all!

Bear Watching Tours run daily at low tide on the waters of the Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds
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📸 Jamie’s Crew

06/08/2024

This World Oceans Day, we invite you to enjoy some footage of a North Pacific humpback whale. Although their status has improved from ‘Threatened’ to ‘Special Concern’ by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, humpback whales still face challenges in our waters such as vessel strikes, entanglement, and climate change.

This footage is from May 31st, during a Tofino zodiac tour.
📸 Celine (Jamie’s Skipper/Naturalist/Bon Photographe)

05/30/2024

May 24th was a memorable day on boats from Tofino with a visit from a small group of orcas! Our Ucluelet boats had seen T68C’s the day prior but only briefly as they headed offshore. The very next morning, there they were, cruising and hunting in the Clayoquot Sound. T68C’s Matriarch was born in 1992 with the youngest calf born last year! Super glad was onboard, snapping some beautiful pictures!
Bonus: lone otter and eagle.
📸

05/22/2024

Not just a cute face with luxe fur! Sea otters are a keystone species with an amazing extirpation/reintroduction saga. We are proudly running our second season of sea otter watching tours and our knowledgeable naturalists have plenty of interesting facts to teach you and the whole family!
📸 (IG)

05/17/2024

Why we love Ukee Station: Location, location, location. The office-to-boat convenience in Ucluelet makes for a smooth transition from check-in to adventure time! Keep your eyes peeled because you can frequently see pelagic bird species, harbour seals, river otters, and sea lions from the dock or office.
📸 Jared Vandermeer (.vandermeer IG*)

Address

606 Campbell Street
Tofino, BC
V0R2Z0

Website

https://www.jamies.com/

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Videos

Shake, shake, shake! Drying off after an early morning, low tide swim back to Vargas Island. Sea wolves are strong swimmers and love to eat herring roe on the rocky shorelines. Always grateful to see these elusive canines Thanks to our skipper/naturalist, Greg, for this amazing telephoto clip!

First whale watching cruiser tour of 2024 in the books and it was a good one! A few grey whales and harbour seals close to home! 📸: Jamie’s Crew