Canada Scuba Diving

Overview of Canada

This is dry suit country. If you can take the cold water, the rewards include an incredible array of filter feeders and marine life that you'll never dive with in warm waters.

Vancouver Island, reachable by air or ferry from Seattle or Vancouver, BC, is a remarkable wilderness destination, both on land and in the water. A traveler may encounter anything from eagles to orcas, sea lions to bears, while diving with a remarkable range of critters such as sea lions, seals, wolf eels and giant Pacific octopuses. There are dive resorts in the Campbell River area, and a few liveaboards such as the well-respected Nautilus Explorer plie these waters. Diving is controlled by the enormous tides that dictate when and where the water is moving, so choosing an experience operator is important.

Undercurrent readers have reported on other Western Canada dive operations located on Victoria Island and in Whitehorse (Yukon Territory), plus St. Albert and Edmonton (Alberta).

Wreck diving is the big draw in Lake Ontario. Truly hardy souls can try ice diving at Baffin Island near the Arctic Circle. There's some diving off the Eastern provinces, such as Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Canada Seasonal Dive Planner

Most British Columbia diving takes place from late Spring to early Fall. The Nautilus Explorer, for instance, heads to Mexico after August. In Nova Scotia, the Gulf Stream warms the ocean surface to 64° F in summer.

Canada Feature Articles and Reader Reports

Attention! You must be an Undercurrent Online Member to access MOST links in this section. However some articles can be accessed by the public -- these links have a button you can click to see the article.

Editor's Book Picks for Canada

The books below are my favorites about diving in this part of the world All books are available at a significant discount from Amazon.com; just follow the links. -- BD

You might find some other books of interest in our Editor's Book Picks section.