by Yvette Cardozo with photography by Mike Macri, Yvette Cardozo, Bill Hirsch
Oct 2001, Vol. 6 No. 1
It had been a disappointing two days in the waters off Churchill, Manitoba. Beluga whales normally crowd Button Bay, feeding and cavorting in reasonably clear water. But this summer in subarctic Canada the whales had been late to arrive and when they did, they stayed away from their usual spots. Our first day out, it was sunny with light winds and little chop but there wasn’t a single whale to be found in decent water. So we headed our rubber Zodiac five miles up the Churchill River where hundreds of them crowded a wedge of land called Mosquito Point.
This is the primo whale watching spot for tourist boats. Moms bring babies here because the water is shallow and warm … high 60s versus mid 30s in the bay. The whales rest, they rub off old skin, they feed. They do all this in water so thick with silt and tannic acid, you could practically spread it with a trowel.
We jumped in anyway, hoping for a miracle. But it was pure murk, so we headed back down river.
And then the miracle happened!
We were off the town’s grain elevator when we spotted the birds. Hundreds of terns and skuas were wheeling and diving over a patch of wildly riffled water. And whales! Dozens of shiny white backs arcing among the waves!
It was a feeding frenzy and the water visibility was considerably better than it had been at Mosquito Point. We motored over slowly and a single large bachelor swam in to check us out. He was belly up, head tipped back and easing in straight towards our stern.
Then, suddenly, he was joined by nearly a dozen of his buddies, also on their backs, stacked up in a semicircle like spokes on a wheel and spaced equally as if someone had X marked spots for them in the water.
It lasted a full minute or two. Time enough to fire off half a dozen frames in our cameras.
And then the bulls broke off, mixing with the others.
We quickly zipped up our drysuits, grabbed our masks and hit the water to join them. For half an hour, we clung to the side of the boat while the whales pirouetted around us.
We knew what they were really after … capelin, needle thin fish maybe three inches long that formed a curtain in the water. Sometimes the capelin were beside us, sometimes beneath. And we could see the whales running through the silvery cloud, scooping up fish with practiced efficiency.
Every so often, they’d break off to play. To our right, several whales tumbled, the gray babies braiding themselves around the moms like a huge rolling ball of twine. Twice this happened so close, we could see speckling on the pups’ gray backs.
We were surrounded by whale chatter … chirping that sounded like birds and pinging that sounded like some grade B World War II submarine movie. And we felt a strange vibration that went right through us. Belugas use this echo location to pinpoint food (and enemies). A day that had started dismally ended with a flourish.
Belugas, those white arctic whales with humps on their heads and quizzical smiles, are extremely intelligent and also wary creatures. The odd wild dolphin may sidle up to a diver for no other reason than curiosity but belugas are much more shy. There is basically only one place on earth that a diver can reach relatively easily and have a guaranteed chance to swim with belugas: Churchill on the far northern edge of Canada’s Manitoba province along Hudson Bay.
In fall, Churchill is Polar Bear Central. Hundreds of bears impatiently wait near town for the bay to freeze solid so they can go out and hunt seals. Tourists have been crowding the town for more than a decade, venturing across the frozen tundra in special vehicles and parking themselves at a tundra camp to snare world class bear photos.
So around Halloween, Churchill can feel like Disney World in high season. But the rest of the year, the place is near deserted.
The whales, however, come as regularly as the bears. And each summer, a trickle of visitors come to see whales from the dry comfort of the town’s main tourist boat.
“Hey, you can also swim with them,” tour boat owner Mike Macri had told us five years ago when we needed to kill three hours in transit from a bush lodge back to civilization. And once we realized how special this was, three hours became three days.
A lot has happened in little ‘ole remote Churchill in five years. It’s becoming a real tourist destination with three season activities (bears in fall, whales in summer, northern lights in spring). There’s a suburb…a SUBURB!!!…where stressed out locals can escape the hustle of the big city (population 1,200) in a cottage subdivision. God, there’s even landscaping. Grass, sort of, and trees artfully arranged with some sense of style out front of various apartment buildings and tour company offices.
To understand how improbable this is, you have to understand just where Churchill sits. This is the Far North, a place where winter temperatures regularly hit 70 below (that’s BEFORE windchill) and even “spring” can mean 40 below. It’s a place where the community center looks like a space station because, well, you really do need protection against lethal outdoor conditions during mid winter.
When locals talk about the perils and hardships of the pioneering days, they’re usually talking about 10 years ago.
And now, there are regular trips to swim with the whales.
Mike Macri, owner of Sea North Tours, Ltd., has spent a decade perfecting Churchill’s whale watching procedures. Most tourists are content to go out on his large boat, a 40-foot, custom built job which can hold 32 people. Whales come right up to the boat, allowing folks to photograph what sometimes looks like a carpet of white humps from above.
But Macri also does a brisk business with his small boats, two zodiacs that can take divers to swim with whales and photograph them under water. Over the years, he’s worked out a system with ropes on the side of the boat. Towing people behind the boat doesn’t work; the whales won’t get close. But if you hang off the side, either holding onto a rope with one hand or slipping a loop over your head and around your chest (leaving both hands free while you brace your feet against the underside of the boat), the whales come right up, sometimes within inches.
This is not diving, it’s snorkeling. And in fact, it’s best done without fins.
Belugas are about the same size as dolphins and are related both to them and narwhals. What sets them apart is their blinding white skin and the ability to nod their heads, which scientists think is an adaptation to let them look for breathing holes in the ice. There’s an estimated 100,000 belugas in the world, a quarter of which wind up in Hudson Bay each summer. Locals have counted as many as 3,600 at one time in Churchill River but usually, they hang out in groups of a dozen or so.
Though belugas look like dolphins, they don’t move like dolphins. Dolphins go like the wind, zipping nervously around and disappearing in a flash. Belugas, even the fast ones, waft in and hang out, sometimes tumbling like puppies but rarely putting on much speed. The biggest problem in Churchill is water visibility. It becomes a game, trying to catch the whales at the mouth of the river and staying ahead of the mud as it washes out with the tide.
Yes, you can find whales in blue water at other locations of the Arctic. You just can’t swim with them, usually, because they’re too skittish.
Here at Churchill, decades of tourist boat traffic and no hunting have habituated the whales to people. One day while we were on board the zodiac, several young belugas came right up to us. Guide Manford Bussell slid his hand off the stern and a youngster bumped his palm. And once, when Brandon had his camera housing with its large reflective dome port just under the surface, a juvenile came up and stopped just short of the dome, waggling his head back and forth. Perhaps he was puzzled by his own reflection.
Our third and last day, the action started immediately. A mom and baby came right under our boat for several passes. The baby was hardly three feet long and only a few days old. It stayed plastered to mom, a small mottled gray sausage against the white of the adult.
We slid into the water as the whales passed. They turned and came back for a look … a dozen of them visible in the cloudy green murk. Three were in a row below us, another two hung behind and suddenly, another four cut horizontally across.
“Hey look right,” came a yell from Manford just as a bull sliced past. He was so close, we could see the puckers around his blowhole. As he passed, a vibration enveloped us, like a motor trill and then the back wash of bubbles hit, surrounding us in a pool of glistening points. The chirps of his calls sounded like a dozen rainforest birds and the buzz of his echo location was almost electric.
We had originally come to Canada hoping to get a glimpse of wolves and caribou. Instead, we talked with whales.
For further information log on to www.adventuretravelwriters.com or email whirsch@cardozohirsch.com
If you go Summer whale season is mid July to mid or late August with peak being late July. General tourist viewing is done aboard a 32-passenger tour boat but for snorkeling, you must charter one of the Zodiacs. You’ll need a minimum of two hours (three is better). Tours in the large boat run about $45 US. Rental of Zodiacs for swimming runs $110 – $160 US per hour, depending on size of boat. If you want to swim with whales, you will need to bring your own wetsuit (or much better, drysuit) and snorkel gear. The water temperature of the bay is in the mid to high 30s.
If you’re planning to arrange things yourself, contact Sea North Tours Ltd, (204) 675- 2195, website: www.cancom.net/~seanorth. For a package where everything from air to hotel and boat is arranged, contact International Wildlife Adventures, PO BOX 40063, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R2L 2G2, toll free (800) 593-8881, website: www.wildlifeadventures.com. The package includes air from Winnipeg, four hotel nights in Churchill plus two in Winnipeg, four whale snorkel trips in a zodiac and assorted other Churchill activities such as hikes and tundra buggy tours for approximately $1,900 US. Divers must bring their own snorkel gear and wet or dry suits.