DH and I want to see brown bears but would like to avoid Alaska. I know there are lots of lodges on the BC coast that do multi-day bear viewing trips. Does anyone have any recommendations for us? We are considering all budgets and length of trip as we are just trying to get recommendations for a great trip but prefer boat or lodge to camping. Of course our budget is not unlimited, but willing to splurge (or not) on a great experience.

http://www.palmerville.bc.ca/

I took a bear-watching boat trip in Tofino and saw bears. I went with Remote Passages, but there are a number of tour operators in Tofino who offer these trips.
I also saw a bear and two cubs right on the pahtway near Long Beach.

I stayed at Knight Inlet Lodge a few years back for a 3 day or so bear viewing trip, and it was an amazing experience. I'd highly recommend it. Just saw them featured on the Today Show during the Olympics, it made me want to go back!

Thanks all! I'm hoping we can get a bear trip this year.

We had a nice viewing last fall when an enormous bear came into our back yard, broke a branch off our apple tree, ate a few apples, left a major "deposit" on the grass, and lumbered off. (We live in Sooke, on Vancouver Island.)

You should open your place as a B&B and advertise the bear viewing, or at least the "deposit" viewing. Black bear or brown bear?

It was a black bear. Usually they're nocturnal; we sometimes hear them snuffling around in the fall when there is fruit on the trees. We were surprised to see this one at lunch time - I guess it was his lunch time too. He was pretty big.

The "deposit" was sort of interesting-looking, if you like that sort of thing. Lots of apple cores and bits of fruit and nutshells.