ADVENTURE CRUISES

Come Meet Us ...

Read on to learn about your experience with us.
To browse our adventure cruises, click the CRUISES link above.

We operate on the principle that “Small Is Beautiful”. We celebrate nature and culture, treat each guest as an individual, and demonstrate success as an environmentally-responsible business.

For over 20 years, educated travelers have joined our natural and cultural history adventure cruises to explore Alaska’s Inside Passage and the peak wildlife areas of British Columbia, Canada. This they do aboard the classic, 92-foot schooner, Maple Leaf, often returning for further explorations. We have also hand-picked one Galapagos cruise to make available to our guests.

Frommer’s has listed our trips as one of the nation’s 6 “Best Travel Experiences” every year since 2000. Explore magazine lists them as one of the top 5 guided trips in Canada.

Small Is Beautiful
We are the very antithesis of mass cruise ship travel.

A journey on the Maple Leaf is almost like having your own private yacht and expedition team to lead you to some of the planet’s peak experiences in comfort. You don’t need any previous boating experience.

The most important elements in any journey we offer are:

• Rich, unparalleled experience of nature, including wildlife.
• Top-quality naturalists and cultural guides, involved in the areas you visit.
• Totally authentic, unscripted interactions with people and places.
• Natural beauty.
• Providing you, our guest, a comfortable, worry-free platform (our ship, our wilderness gourmet meals, the best gear, assistance with anything, the best guides) so that you feel the joy of exploring new places safely, and have experiences unavailable to most people on earth.
• A maximum of eight guests per trip. This results in low / no impact on wildlife or sensitive areas. And it ensures we know you as a unique person.

Therefore, we develop and operate every adventure cruise we offer in Alaska and British Columbia, Canada, ourselves.

Former Backcountry Park Ranger Kevin Smith, President

His experience as a geographer, backcountry park ranger and teacher all contribute to his leadership of one of the premier ecotourism organizations on the coast.

Kevin continues Maple Leaf's tradition of building the framework for ecotourism on the coast, and is an executive member of respected industry organizations including the Wilderness Tourism Association and the Commercial Bear Viewing Association.

Kevin’s five-year tenure as a negotiator on the Great Bear Rainforest land use plan brings a rare depth of understanding to the area's history and current situation.

Naturalists and Resource People

Veterans of field research, leaders in their communities, they enrich our experience of everything, from watching a grizzly sow nurse her cub, to a walk in the rainforest, to the exploration of a powerful cultural site.

Key Relationships with Scientists and Community Leaders

As a result, our guests benefit from planned and unplanned visits with them, in the field, or over a meal on board.

Excellent Safety, Operations and Gear

23 Years of Ecotourism

We are informed by the principles of ecotourism:

• Our trips have low impact (virtually no impact!) on the planet.
• We partner with local people and support local economies in the areas we travel. We have protocol agreements either signed or in process with First Nations (Native American) whose territories we visit.
• We believe that it is not enough to merely "see" the coast. We enable our guests to immerse themselves in its beauty, to meet the people that live here in an authentic setting, and to learn as much as they desire about it.
• We work within the regulations of parks, conservation areas and governments, we pay the applicable fees and obtain permits for all limited-use areas we visit.
• We dedicate time and resources to preserving the wilderness we travel in. We support research organizations and other organizations working for positive change on the coast.

We are the first adventure cruise company (and the first cruise company in the world) to be part of 1% For The Planet.

To browse our adventure cruises, click the CRUISES link at the top of this section.