Of course, one always want to see many bears, but we were fortunate to see a bear with her cubs. Very impressive with Stuart our guide and his comments during the tour. Your representative was there to direct us to our tour, and it left in a timely fashion. We only had 10 people on our van, and certainly from a price point as well as not being herded like cattle into a large bus made this tour much more enjoyable.
Our guide was a chief of one of the Tlingit tribes, and had great stories about the history of his people, their culture and practices. Oh, and he found bears! Probably the best of our several excursions during the Alaska cruise
My husband and I were the only two on this tour, with guide Stu Mills, who happened to be a chief and medicine man of the local tribe so we got a very informative and personal tour of the island. We learnt about the self supporting people, their local customs, totem pole carvings, natural medicines and much, much more. The tour stretched from 3 to over 4 hours and we saw a very big, rather skinny, brown bear right beside the road. We were able to get very close to him while he grazed on the vegetation on the roadside. He also explained that it was important to the local people to get more involved with taking tours as it added much needed income to the town, while tours with the big companies added little to the local economy. The weather was perfect and we were wishing we hadn't put on the merino vests, thick jerseys and heavy boots.
Can't thank Stu enough for his knowledge, expertise and kindness during our tour and would recommend this tour to anyone.