SPONSORED — For many travelers, the word “vacation” just doesn’t cut it anymore. More and more people are traveling to have an experience, and it’s difficult to imagine a better experience than being dropped off by a helicopter on the deck of a luxurious, floating lodge in the pristine wilderness.

If you’ve ever been salmon fishing off the coast of Washington state or in one of its rivers, you understand what good, fresh fish are all about. However, you can catch those same fish at the “top end of the Chinook pipeline,” making the experience — and the fish — extraordinary.

Cruising the ‘salmon freeway’

Formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, Haida Gwaii, located off the coast of British Columbia, is one of the primary places where chinook salmon migration begins.

“There’s a whole bunch of places you can go to catch salmon, but when you travel to a location you want to have action,” said Tom Nelson, host of 710 ESPN’s The Outdoor Line. “By heading to Haida Gwaii, right on the salmon highway, the fishing is consistent, and the fish are fat and sassy from feeding on the oceanic pastures.”

By the time a salmon’s migration ends, it starts to lose oil, and therefore, table quality. By the time it gets back to its natal streams, it has lost of lot of its all-important omega-3 fatty acids and flavor.

If you haven’t experienced these fish at their prime, you don’t know what you’re missing. Not only are the fish better tasting and better for you when they are caught farther north, the Haida Gwaii fishing experience is unforgettable as well.

“The best part of a coastal salmon fishing is the places the salmon make you go to catch them,” Nelson says.

Untouched wilderness

Haida Gwaii is home to humpback whales, harbor seals, sea otters, eagles and bears. Its inlets, populated with halibut, rockfish and lingcod are reminiscent of the fjords of Norway, with evergreen trees seemingly growing out of solid rock emerging from tide water.

“It’s the trip that keeps on giving,” Nelson said. “When you get home, you have a couple thousand dollars of prime seafood to share with friends and family, and that’s way, way better than merely having pictures of your vacation to look at.”

Chuck Gould of Canada has been to 19 fishing lodges in British Columbia and describes the area as untouched wilderness: “It gets in your blood. Once you go, you have to go back,” said Gould.

This year he’s taking his guests back to Westcoast Resorts for what he calls “roughing it in a five-star experience.”

Repeat visitors

“It’s the Lay’s potato chips of fishing trips,” Nelson said. “Once you go, you have to go again; when you get home, you’ll find yourself closing your eyes and seeing that shoreline, that huge chinook salmon jumping next to the boat and you’ll know in your heart that you’ve experienced something very special.”

You’ll want to have that experience again.