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Green Canada: You still want to travel, but do it responsibly. Here’s a list of eco-friendly vacation options.

The list is as long as our country is wide, so we’ve edited the options for you.

by Masa Takei 16 April 2009

Green tours. Eco-vacations. Responsible travel. Whatever you call it, while your stock portfolio may be down, down, down, sustainable tourism* is way up. Go ahead: explore! Just do it with a conscience.
  1. Mothership Adventures cruises past the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest left in the world. The Great Bear Rainforest stretches up the wild British Columbia coast from Bute Inlet all the way to Alaska. Covering roughly 64,000 sq km (24,700 sq mi), you could squeeze all of Belgium into the Great Bear, twice. Most of the food and supplies for guests staying on the boat are bought in local communities and local guides enlisted. An array of natural and cultural history experts aboard this historic vessel supplements regular sea-kayaking tours.
  2. Nimmo Bay Resort is a member of the first sustainable tourism collective in Canada, the BC Sustainable Tourism Collective. The resort, located on the British Columbia mainland across from the northern end of Vancouver Island, can lay claim to an impressive array of measures taken for environmental stewardship—from its water-powered hydro and waste-management systems to its use of ecologically sound cleaning products and catch-and-release fishing policy. The resort offers other activities with various expert guides passing on their knowledge about wildlife, outdoor skills and even speleology. Nimmo Bay has also worked to reach an agreement, the Wi’la’mola Accord, with the area’s local First Nations.
     
  3. Cruise North Expeditions operates in Canada’s Arctic. What makes it special is that it’s owned and operated by the Inuit of Northern Quebec. Their priorities are “cultural preservation, community investment and environmental commitment.” The proceeds of the business are invested in the region’s communities, and the local youth are trained onboard in such skills as guiding, ship navigation and cultural interpretation.
  4. Cree Village Ecolodge in northern Ontario was one of the first Aboriginal ecotourism lodges. The award-winning, environmentally friendly lodge was designed and built by the area’s indigenous people and employs everything from natural building materials and organic bedding to Clivus Multrum composting toilets and triple-glazed, Low-E argon windows. Guided tours of the surrounding sub-Arctic area cover the history of Moose Factory Island and the native plants and herbs still used by the Cree people.
  5. Aurum Lodge in the front range of the Canadian Rockies is the only wilderness retreat in Alberta to earn a Five Green Leaf Eco-Rating from the Hotel Association of Canada (now the Audubon Green Leaf Eco-Rating Program). The lodge, located near Banff National Park, donates 2.5% of its gross room revenues to enviro causes. Aurum also partners with low-impact, conservation-minded operators in the area, who provide activities such as voyageur canoe ventures and learning about the traditional lives of the native North Americans.
 
* “Ecotourism is a segment of sustainable tourism that offers experiences that enable visitors to discover natural areas while preserving their integrity, and to understand, through interpretation and education, the natural and cultural sense of place. It fosters respect towards the environment, reflects sustainable business practices, creates socio-economic benefits for communities/regions, and recognizes and respects local and indigenous cultures, traditions and values,” says the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC); a definition the group has reached after extensive consultation with industry.
 
The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), the oldest and largest of such organizations with members in over 90 countries, defines ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.”

But as Peter Williams, Director of Simon Fraser University Centre for Tourism Policy and Research, says, “Ecotourism is like a guiding fiction—there is amongst industry advocates general agreement on the concept and its guiding principles, but widely varying interpretation on the way and extent to which those principles are transformed into action.”
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Usage guidelines

We welcome you to use these story ideas as inspiration for your own stories about Canada. The CTC owns all rights worldwide. (Our images are also royalty-free and available for editorial print, broadcast and electronic use.) If you choose to reproduce these texts for editorial use only, please include the author's byline and "courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission." If you cut, edit or modify the text in any way, please include this note: "The text has been modified from the original." Thank you.

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Comments

amyers wrote:
1 February 2010 | @ 6:25am

A point of clarification: The Hotel Association of Canada's Eco-Rating Program is actually now known as the Green Key Eco-Rating Program (www.greenkeyglobal.com).

The Audubon Green Leaf Program does exist but is not affiliated with the Hotel Association of Canada.

Andrea Myers
Director - Marketing & Member Services
Hotel Association of Canada

Photo credit : Victoria Island, Northwest Territories © NWTT/Terry Parker - Background Image