By Mark Kiemele Bear photos by Todd Peacey

When Kalvin Hackett takes guests from around the world into Bute Inlet for the Homalco Wildlife Tours, he goes armed… with knowledge. The goal for him is to be the best for himself, his nation and the company.

“I’m a busy bee,” Kalvin Hackett admits as he visits outside the Homalco community hall in Campbell River.

The very well-spoken young man says that he’s been working since age 12 when he ran a lawn maintenance company. That was also when he took his first trip into Bute and began to learn about his nation’s original home around Orford Bay.

Now, 13 years later, Kalvin has turned six seasons as a rookie guide for the tours into a passion. He’s a skipper on one of the canoes that takes visitors to view wildlife and petroglyphs, eat traditional foods and learn about the culture of his people.

“I started out very nervous as a tour guide and not very informative,” he admits. “But the more I read up on bear ecology and fish biology and the more I learned about the history and the Coast Salish dialect, the stories and the meanings… the more I armed myself with knowledge, the easier these bear tours got.

“If I can learn three of anything and everything – three bears, three whales, three mountains, three rivers, three trees – the easier it gets. I’m taking a bird course this year to further my knowledge. It’s a little embarrassing when a tour guest can out-do you on birds. It leaves a humble, bitter taste in my mouth.”

So beware guests of Homalco Wildlife Tours. You’ll be guided by a walking, talking wildlife Wikipedia.

“I want to be the best I can be for myself, for Homalco and for the company,” Kalvin says. “We are a world-renowned tour destination. Last year we were number one on TripAdvisor. And how we perceive the vision of all of our guests… we want to look good.”

After Kalvin graduated from high school, he spent a year in the Raven Aboriginal youth program at CFB Esquimalt and then worked a series of jobs from the production line at an Ucluelet seafood plant to wild land firefighting.

“Things were building up,” he says of those jobs. “So, I decided to do Bear Aware, level one first aid, get a transportation endorsement and swift water river rescue. Those are all mandatory certifications for what I do.”

He began working for Homalco Wildlife Tours in 2011. “You’ve got to start in janitorial, washing buses and mopping floors and work your way up. I can do everything now, pretty much, from running the show to answering emails.”

But at the centre of all his work are the bears.

“There’s nothing more symbolic to our wilderness than the BC coastal grizzly bears,” he says as he talks about the animals that can weigh more than 1,000 pounds. He is also fascinated by the recent studies at Orford Bay, using barbed wire and cameras to collect hair for DNA and other vital information from tree-mounted cameras.

“We’re going to get to the point where we know all the bears,” he says. “We want to keep the tours as authentic as possible with nothing invasive. That’s their home and we’re all guests.

“Each grizzly is different. Some are lazy as heck and others are go-getters. They’re individuals with their own characteristics.”

As he anticipates another season in Orford, with more than 3,000 visitors expected, he looks forward to another year of knowledge-building.

“I don’t consider this a job, more of a lifestyle. I honestly and truly love what I do. I’m very blessed.”