Take a trip to BC's Great Bear Rainforest and you will be dazzled by a misty world of mountain fjords, trees as tall as 30-storey buildings and the rare white Kermode bear - or "Spirit" bear. Covering 6.4 million hectares, the Great Bear Rainforest represents one-quarter of the earth's remaining ancient coastal temperate rainforests.

The Great Bear Rainforest gets its name from the forest's abundant bear populations - black bears and grizzlies.  Parts of the region include the habitat of the white Kermode ("Spirit") bear, a subspecies of the black bear. Spirit bears are only found on the North Coast, mostly on Princess Royal Island and in some nearby mainland valleys.

Blanketed in mist and clouds that moderate temperatures and hold in moisture, this ancient rainforest has the highest biological productivity of any terrestrial ecosystem. With a biomass of 500 tonnes per acre, it tops the biological productivity of tropical forests by 40 percent.

Evolved over tens of thousands of years, the rainforest's  complex web of interrelationships sustains a magnificent diversity of wildlife, from hundreds of genetically diverse salmon runs, to large predators like cougars, bears and wolves. The impressive array of species found in the rainforest include rare and threatened creatures: the elusive wolverine, Steller's sea lions, peregrine falcons, and a uniquely adapted seabird which can only nest in ancient rainforests, the marbled murrelet.