| When my mother was five years old, she saw whales from her home in the Azores islands. Men were hunting them with harpoons in a boat. She remembers being afraid for the men, because their boat seemed so small compared to the whale it was pursuing.
That was early in the Second World War, when even neutral Portugal was rationing petroleum products in preparation for war. Whale oil became the main source of home fuel in that period. By the time the war ended, my mom no longer saw whales off the coast. They had been replaced by scientists, who were asking the islanders about the whales' disappearance.
Today, Canadians are fortunate to be able to observe whales. Newfoundland offers several good locations for whale watching, including Bay Bulls, a 20-minute drive from St. John's. The site owes its existence to a time when cod were so abundant here that they were touted as a food supply for entire European nations. The 1500s saw Portuguese, Spanish, French and English fishing interests competing on these coasts. English occupation of Bay Bulls had originally been seasonal, but they decided year-around settlement was a good way to protect their interest. It was their Irish indentured servants, however, who had the dubious honour of being the first to weather the harsh Atlantic winter here, in 1612. Similar experiments in other coastal settlements led to a booming Irish population on the southeast coast, an area of Newfoundland now known as the Irish Loop.
The Anglo-Irish settlement at Bay Bulls was not sufficient to assure the English cod interest, however. The French continued to contest possession of the bay until the end of the 1700s, most notoriously in 1696, when a group of privateers – pirates operating with the sanction of the French crown – caused an English captain to sink his own ship, HMS Sapphire, to avoid its capture. The Sapphire continues to lie at the bottom of Bay Bulls, now as a national historic site.
A visitor to Bay Bulls has several tour operators to choose from. One of the bigger, faster vessels can get you to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve and back in 90 minutes. I went on a smaller boat, which added an hour to the trip, but also gave me a sense of what it might have been like to be tossed upon the sea in an old whaling vessel. Those prone to motion sickness should choose accordingly.
Though Bay Bulls is a short drive from St. John's, it's very likely that by the time you return to the city you'll have experienced the fickle climate of Newfoundland. I arrived at the harbour under a cloudless blue sky, but 15 minutes into the voyage it was overcast. Another quarter hour and both sea and sky were a dark grey, and wind and rain followed.
As you motor out of Bay Bulls, you get a sense of the changing local economy. Fishing boats have been replaced by large oil and gas vessels to service the offshore energy industry. While their presence may spoil the perfect postcard shot of a fishing cove (try Brigus if that's what you're after), they, like the vanished cod that used to be the backbone of the Newfoundland economy, are a sharp reminder of the limits the Earth sets on its bounty: sic transit copia mundi. But a feast for the senses awaits as you pull out of the harbour. First you encounter the "sea stacks," sandstone cliffs that used to be part of the shore, but now stand isolated in the bay as a result of erosion. Ever been to the Alberta Badlands? Think of them at sea and you’ll have some idea of what these "stacks" look like.
Geological curiosities soon give way to open sea as your vessel rounds the cape. Schooling below you are countless caplin, a sardine-like fish. It is the presence of caplin that draws the whales. The humpbacks have recently calved and bring their young to feed here during the summer months. This feeding season is an especially good one for whale sightings, since the abundance of caplin – a layer of them 40 metres thick according to the sonar on our boat – is attracting more whales than usual. Visit by the end of August for optimum conditions.
In rough seas it can be difficult to distinguish the dorsal fin of the humpback from a distance. But as you approach and your guide points out the spray from their blowholes, it gets easier to anticipate their surfacing. With the caplin being so plentiful, my tour saw fewer terminal dives – when the whales dive deep in search of more fish, and flip up their flukes (the "fins" of their tail) just before they disappear under the surface. But there was still plenty to see.
Few photos give you a sense of the scale of these enormous animals; only when they swim alongside your boat do you perceive how unconcerned they are with these puny vessels. But when they're not so intent on feeding to build up the blubber that insulates them from the cold North Atlantic, they will occasionally play with the boats, taking turns diving underneath them. On my trip, the mothers were more concerned with herding their young toward the choicest caplin.
The boats continue south to Gull Island and the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Some two million birds nest in this area, a quarter of them Atlantic puffins, the provincial bird. The pungent scent of fish strikes as you approach the island. If you think puffins look comical on land, you should see them in the air – they can barely fly and have to beat their wings into a blur just to stay aloft, but they can dive great depths into the ocean in pursuit of their quarry. They then deliver the fish to their young in their nests, which are burrowed in among the roots of the trees. (Other species on Gull Island fashion nests out of their own excrement, among the rocky crags.) This labour continues more or less non-stop until the young are strong enough to fly out and feed themselves.
As the boat rounds Gull Island and heads for home, you get another chance to observe the whales feeding and nurturing. And then, if you're lucky, your guide will strike up a Maritime ballad that will see you into port. Once ashore you might want to compare notes with your fellow travellers over a cold beer or hot chowder, depending on the weather. Whale watching in Bay Bulls is bound to be different every time out. |
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