Stubbs Island Whale Watching is the reason whale watching exists as a business in British Columbia. It started at Telegraph Cove in 1980, ran 38 seasons on Johnstone Strait, and then lost its office lease and closed. You cannot book it. What you can still do is book the water it opened up, and this page explains who holds it now and what that costs.
What it was
Stubbs Island Charters Ltd. began as a dive operation and turned into a whale company when the volume of orcas in the neighbouring strait became impossible to ignore. Telegraph Cove Resort, which hosted it from 1980, describes it in its own published account as the first whale-watching company on Vancouver Island, and says Jim Borrowman — one of its first owners — worked alongside the resort at the Cove for almost thirty years.
The company's reputation was built on restraint rather than reach. It kept its distance from animals, funded research and education, and helped seed the body now known as the North Island Marine Mammal Stewardship Association. By the end it had taken close to half a million visitors out of one small boardwalk village.
Why it closed
Not for lack of customers. The owners — president Heike Wieske with Geord Dunstan and Roger McDonell — put the business up for sale at the end of a season, intending to keep running until a like-minded buyer appeared. Instead the office lease at Telegraph Cove Resort was ended, with a vacate date at the end of January, and the company cancelled its coming season.
The resort's side is published too, and worth reading in full if you care about the story. Owners Gordie and Marilyn Graham wrote that once Stubbs Island went up for sale with no long-term lease in place, they could not know who the new owner would be or whether the service would be safe and ethical — so they negotiated a long-term agreement with Prince of Whales instead. They also noted the new operator's conservation surcharge, which the resort expected to raise about C$100,000 a season for local orca research, the Whale Interpretive Centre and fishery enhancement.
Both accounts can be true at once: a lease is a lease, and a 38-year tenant losing one in midwinter is still a hard landing. Guests with reservations were moved to Discovery Marine Safaris in Campbell River, a smaller company owned by one of the three Stubbs Island owners.
Where its website leads now
Type the old address and you do not get a memorial page. stubbs-island.com redirects to campbellriverwhalewatching.com, landing on that company's page about absorbing Discovery Marine Safaris Ltd. into the Campbell River Adventure Tours Group.
That is the whole chain in one hop: Stubbs Island closes, its bookings move to Discovery Marine Safaris, Discovery Marine Safaris is acquired by Campbell River Whale Watching, and the domain follows the successor. Some accounts compress that into Discovery Marine Safaris simply acquiring Stubbs Island; what is documented is the transfer of the bookings and, later, Discovery Marine Safaris itself being absorbed into the Campbell River group. Either way, if you arrived here from an old link or a printed brochure, that is why you ended up in Campbell River.
What to book at Telegraph Cove instead
Prince of Whales holds the resort agreement and runs the departures. According to princeofwhales.com its Telegraph Cove line-up is a half-day whale-watching trip at C$179 per adult, June to September, about three hours; a zodiac trip at C$199, May to September; and a private zodiac charter at C$2,100 per boat, May to October, all before taxes and fees. Kayak-and-whale combinations are sold at a discount off the separate prices.
Same trip, formats compared
Prices refreshed from the GetYourGuide feed in Canadian dollars.
Those are the partner listings from the same village; the GetYourGuide activity pages block our checks, so we cannot confirm which company supplies them. Partner prices are checked regularly.
The water has not changed, and it is still the best orca water in the country. Northern Resident orcas concentrate here in high summer, humpbacks have returned in numbers, and the boats work the edge of the Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve — which BC Parks states is closed to all uses or entry, so no operator should take you into it. For the biology and the timing, see the orca page.
Verdict
A historically important company that no longer exists, and an object lesson in how fragile a tourism business is when it does not own its dock. Read it, then book the village rather than the brand: Prince of Whales from Telegraph Cove for orcas in July and August, or Campbell River Whale Watching for the longer trips further south. If you are comparing the whole coast first, start with British Columbia.