An 88-foot converted tugboat, the MV Swell, glides past the remote glaciers of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. The Ireland-sized wilderness area has few roads, so boats or planes are the best way to see its abundant wildlife and old-growth forests. Photo by Don Mankin

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As our boat glided across Canada’s Kitlope Lake, the surface gleamed like glass, reflecting the steep, thickly forested slopes that lined the shore. Wrapped in silence, we gazed at the jagged, icy peaks looming in the background.

We were on the fourth day of a weeklong adventure deep into the fjords of the northern coast of British Columbia, one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The Great Bear Rainforest is wild and remote — no roads, only deep fjords and channels lined with lush forests, glacier encrusted mountains and granite cliffs.

At almost 16 million acres, it’s the largest intact temperate coastal rainforest in the world and, thanks to decades of advocacy by environmentalists and First Nations tribes, most of it is now a nature preserve.

In the sections of the rainforest that we explored, there are no cities, towns or villages, just bears, eagles, whales and the remnants of indigenous villages and camps dating back thousands of years. These historic cultural sites added a human dimension to this wild place.

We were transported into this fairytale landscape on a historic vessel, the MV Swell, a 1912 tugboat converted into a touring boat. With six private cabins and a crew of six, the Swell is compact and intimate, furnished in polished wood and brass fittings, with a combination salon/lounge/dining room, two outdoor decks and a hot tub.

To reach the ship, my wife and I flew to Vancouver, then the city of Terrace in north coastal B.C., near the border with Southeast Alaska. A shuttle whisked us to the Swell in Kitimat to begin our Great Bear Rainforest adventure.

Grizzly bears, eagles and orca

The next day, the first full day on the boat, started the trip with a bang. We headed out in two Zodiacs (inflatable motorboats) to look for wildlife.

Our first sighting was a great blue heron near the shore. Then an eagle in a tree.

The main event was a lingering, up-close view of a young grizzly bear munching on sedge on the shore. The bear was unfazed by our company, pausing every now and then to check us out only a few yards offshore. At one point he even posed in full view on a log.

Then our guides received a crackly call on their shortwave radios from the skipper on the Swell about several orcas near the boat.

We sped over to see a family of three swim gracefully and majestically along the shore. The sun lit up their gleaming backs, dorsal fins and clouds of misty droplets emitted by their deep exhalations. We followed them for several minutes as they dived, surfaced and swam.

We saw less wildlife over the next couple of days, but the scenery grew even more dramatic as we entered the Gardner Canal, a long natural fjord and B.C.’s longest.

We were surrounded by steep, massive granite monoliths, thick with trees clinging to cracks in the stone like desperate rock climbers. One waterfall after another marked our way along the canal.

Another day, we landed on shore to search for evidence of bears — scratches, tufts of fur — on tree trunks in the forest. Fresh bear poop reminded us that we were not alone.

We had the place pretty much to ourselves. No internet, no cell phone service, no CNN. I didn’t miss it.

Rainforest expedition

On our fourth day, we embarked on a great adventure — a full-day excursion in the Zodiacs up the river to Kitlope Lake, the ancestral home of the Haisla First Nation people.

After three hours winding up the river amid puffs of cottonwood seeds drifting in the air and on the water, we spotted two skittish bears on the shore.

Soon after, we worked our way over a shallow stretch of river, dinging the propeller of our outboard motor on the rocky bottom. This was the last barrier before entering the lake — a barrier that had thwarted our guides in previous attempts.

We made it. For several minutes we sat in silence, transfixed. No one else was there. No boats, no kayaks, no huts, no planes flying overhead.

Marlo, our chief guide, believes it’s the most remote place on earth. We lingered on the beach for a while. Except for a pool of thousands of tadpoles, we had this paradise to ourselves.

On the way back to the tugboat, we visited M’iskusu, the former village site of the Haisla nation, to see a replica totem pole — a copy of the pole taken from the Haisla people in 1929 and spirited off to a museum in Sweden.

The yearslong effort to return the pole to its rightful place among the Haisla people is an example of the First Nations’ struggle to preserve and recapture their culture and identity.

That night I slept better than I had in weeks.

Hot springs, porpoises, whales

The next day, after spotting a bear on shore, we took some time off to soak in a natural hot spring with a view of the bay. Since I was already in my bathing suit, I decided to top off the day with a soak in the hot tub on the upper deck of the Swell with an even better view.

On our last full day, several porpoises escorted us on the way to the Whale Research Station on Fin Island. They darted in, out and under our bow as we plowed through the water.

Soon after, we spotted two humpback whales frolicking in the water — leaping and diving just 100 yards away. The show went on for several minutes.

Just when I figured the trip was over, we climbed in the Zodiacs for one last cruise into Gilttoyees Inlet for maybe the most stunning scenery of all.

The terrain was essentially the same — snowcapped peaks, lush forest, sparkling water — but the colors seemed even more vivid than usual. Maybe it was the realization that our trip was coming to an end, and I wanted to burn the scene into my memory.

A healing journey

We almost didn’t make it here. For three weeks before the trip, I had been coughing and wheezing from asthma brought on by a bad cold.

But by the end of the trip, I felt better than I had in weeks. The combination of wilderness, fresh air and wildlife had flushed out my lingering illness.

I know that over time, the body often heals itself. The right medicines also help.

But I can’t help thinking that, to some extent, my body and mind were healed by the waters, trees and massifs — as well as the living things, animal and human, past and present — of the Great Bear Rainforest.

If you go

Great Bear Rainforest trips are run by Maple Leaf Adventures (mapleleafadventures.com), the host for this trip. They offer a number of different itineraries in the Great Bear Rainforest.

The 11-day trips aboard the Swell start at around $15,000 per person. The shortest trips (5 days) start at around $4,600/pp.

Round-trip airfare to Vancouver on WestJet, United or Air Canada is less than $500. Round-trip airfare between Vancouver and Terrace, B.C. is about $225 on WestJet or Air Canada.