White Whales

I'm no veteran kayaker by any stretch of the imagination (just three times as of the writing of this blog post) but I'd wager to say that it's rarely a good thing when you feel contact on your kayak from below. It's not another kayaker, after all. 

But sure enough, we are paddling on the Churchill River in August of this year and that's exactly what happened. Thump! Contact. The kayak wobbles a little.

"What are you doing back there?" asked my wife (we were in a double kayak, sometimes known as divorce kayaks), like I'm intentionally rocking the kayak for fun or something. "It wasn't me." I replied. "It was a whale."

Welcome to summer kayaking in Churchill, Manitoba.

Would this guy ever rock the boat while kayaking? I don't think so.

We have been flirting with a visit to Churchill to see polar bears for years now. Two things constantly swirled in our yes or no debate to visit or not visit: (1) the certainty around seeing wildlife that we can't see anywhere else and (2) the cost. Late last year, we finally got over the cost thing and decided to plop down the cash for a trip to the shore of the Hudson Bay. That left one decision to make: when to go?

There are basically three different seasons to visit Churchill: winter, summer and fall. Fall is bear season, when the chances of seeing polar bears are their highest. We really, really wanted to see a polar bear in the wild but we didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket. I mean what if we didn't see a polar bear? What else there in the fall? Winter is aurora borealis season, when the skies are dark and the solar wind lights up the sky in all sorts of colors. But the bears are out on the ice in winter. No bears, no trip for us.

So we looked at what we might see in the summer. There was still the opportunity for bear watching. Not guaranteed but then when is anything related to nature and wildlife tourism guaranteed? But something else happens in the summer in the Hudson Bay right next to Churchill: beluga whales populate the Bay in the tens of thousands (like 50,000 plus) to breed and give birth. Summer offered maybe bear sightings. But it we didn't get bears, we'd definitely get belugas. Summer won.

Beluga tail. Churchill River.

We've been whale watching before. I'm not sure I've ever whale watched with my wife and ever come away super excited. Whale watching is most times (at least in my experience) an exercise in limited engagements with things that generally spend a lot of time invisible below the water and then pop up for a few seconds before dropping back down below the surface of the water. Sure, we've seen some humpbacks lunge feeding off the coast of Boston and we've seen a couple of full body breaches (also humpbacks) in Hawaii but a breach takes like seconds so unless the whale is repeatedly breaching (ours were not) then it's again seconds of excitement.

Mostly, for us, whale watching has been water watching. Lots of nothing punctuated by seconds of possibility that rarely pay off.

But 50,000 whales in one location? Seemed to good to be true. I know the Hudson Bay is big. Like bigger than Texas big. But 50,000 seemed like we should be in for a whale watching experience like we'd never had before. We had two whale watching outings on our itinerary: one fairly large boat that would take us from Churchill to the Prince of Wales Fort National Historic Site and one six or seven or so person rigid inflatable boat (RIB) that got repeatedly referred to as a Zodiac because of the company that makes the boats. Neither trip, by the way, actually made it out into the Hudson Bay proper. We'd spend all our whale watching time on the Churchill River, which I assume has decidedly fewer than 50,000 belugas in it at any one time.

The larger boat was probably a smaller version of the type of boat we'd been whale watching on before, meaning elevated a bit off the surface of the water. The Zodiac was a lot closer to the River. Like we could have dipped our hands into the water. I was excited for the Zodiac ride.

Belugas surfacing next to a Zodiac with all the people looking the opposite way.

So let's skip the suspense here, if there really was any to begin with. There were a lot of belugas in the Churchill River no matter what sort of boat we happened to be on. On a typical ocean-going whale watch trip, maybe there are double digit numbers of whales in view at any one time. Maybe. And that would be an extremely good trip to watch whales. I'm not sure I've actually ever seen double digit whales on a whale watching trip before. With belugas? Easily possible to see 20 or so at a time by looking out over the water. And there is likely a lot of opportunity for close up looks.

Two things help here. First, the whales surface a lot. I don't whether it's just the species in general or the fact that there are new babies involved but belugas surface frequently. More surfacing equals more looks. No waiting 10 or 15 minutes for a single whale to surface hopefully somewhere near the boat for seconds and be gone again. Lots of arched backs with the belugas. It's almost more like dolphin watching more than whale watching. 

Second, they are white. Well, the adults are white at least (the babies are sort of a dark gray color). And that body tone combined with shallow dives means you can see the whales even when they are under water. 

Take a look at the picture below. I know it's difficult to tell in some spots whether a splash on the surface of the water is a wave or a whale and it's also difficult to tell if a whitish spot is a breaker or an underwater cetacean but there are legitimately between six and twelve whales in the picture below. And that's just looking out one side of the boat. I know it's not 50,000 but this is more whales than I've ever seen in one spot in my life. We chose summer in Churchill hoping for polar bears with a pretty much guaranteed safety net in beluga spotting. Beluga watching ended up being better than polar bear watching.

The three whale pictures to this point in the post were all snapped from the bigger boat on our way to the Prince of Wales Fort. The Zodiac blew away that boat.

Before we get to the up close beluga encounters we had on the Zodiac, let me say that by and large, we had pretty good weather in our week or so in Canada, including when we were on the water in boats of all sorts of sizes and shapes and occupancies. Except when we were on the Zodiacs. It was cold (like mid-50s) with wind and rain. 

I decided I'd wear a rain jacket, a fleece, hiking pants and boots (I wore more than just that but go with this for a couple of sentences). The rain jacket and boots were waterproof. When I got off the boat my socks were warm and dry (other than the bit that poked over the top of the boots) and my fleece below my rain jacket was also warm and dry. Everything between those two points on my body was soaking wet and cold. I can't remember being so cold and wet in recent memory. My teeth were chattering I was so cold. But the whale watching was just excellent.

Beluga watching from the Zodiac.

Zodiac appreciation time.

The difference between being on a deck of a large boat maybe four feet above the water level and leaning against a let's say 3-1/2 foot high railing and being inches above the Churchill River with an inflated perimeter on a boat about 2 feet high is huge. You can see the water better but for sure you can see the whales way better. You almost feel you can reach out and touch the belugas (although no touching the whales please; zero touch policy!).

The difference between being on a boat with about 20 people is also way different than being on one with about seven. The Zodiac was stable enough and big enough to stand up and walk around with a little holding on (although maybe "shift position" rather than "walk around" is more accurate) but it is also so small that seeing from one side of the boat to the other was never an issue. And when there are so many whales at times surfacing all around the boat, seeing 360 degrees is important. You never know where the next one is going to and that's a good thing. 

If you've ever ridden on an RIB before, you'll understand that one of the extreme advantages they have over other craft is that they are way, way faster. We blue whale watched on an RIB off the coast of Los Angeles years ago and the pilot could react instantly to wherever the whales surfaced. At Churchill, other than the initial trip out into the body of the water, us needing the RIB speed to pursue whales quickly wasn't really an issue for us here since there were so many whales all around us.

But, there was one feature of the Zodiac's speed that helped the whale watching for us. Belugas like to chase the wakes of boats and it seemed to me that the faster the boat was going, the more they chased. It was like having your own whale entourage right behind the boat. And when that entourage was a mother and baby and they kept both popping their heads up again and again, it made this experience very worthwhile.

If you ever make it to Churchill in summer and have the opportunity to go beluga watching, go on a Zodiac. And I hope that it's warmer than our trip; it took about 15 minutes in a hot shower to mostly warm up. But even if it is cold, it's worth it. Bring rain pants. Lesson learned there.

Belugas in front of and behind the Zodiac. The best baby head picture is the last pic. Mom is underwater.

If you are proofreading this post as you are enjoying my excitement about whale watching, I suppose you might be thinking "hey, what happened to the kayaking?" and you'd be right to wonder. We weren't supposed to go kayaking on this trip. We were supposed to take two boat rides to see belugas. Somehow kayaking got squeezed into the agenda. We ended up with three different beluga watch experiences. What a bonus!

To be completely clear here, kayaking with belugas may be a top ten travel experience for me. I'm not sure how many top ten travel experiences I would identify in my life so maybe I'm a bit too bullish on this being better than all but nine other travel days. Maybe it's top 25. Suffice it to say that it was incredible. Having a whale bump your kayak is one of those things I never thought I'd experience. Forget whales as close as 20 or 30 feet away or even like 5 or 6 feet away like in the Zodiac. We are talking whales inches from us.

Kayak safety briefing (top) and getting to the kayaks for launch.

Some folks on our kayaking adventure managed to paddle fast enough to create a wake so belugas would follow their kayaks. We didn't. No way on my third ever kayaking journey can I make a double kayak cut through the water that fast. Fortunately, if you are getting belugas to follow your speed, it's not like you can even see them. And...belugas are naturally curious like most whales. If there's something on the surface of the water, eventually they will likely want to take a close look.

So the pictures below are just a curious beluga cruising by and then underneath our kayak just to see what's up. This whale passed literally maybe a foot below where we were sitting and we could see how close it was as it passed below our kayak. A few minutes on one side or another of that swim-by look, a younger beluga popped its head above the water literally right next to my hip, looked at me (at least that's what I think it did), exhaled with a little spray and then dove back under. 

Other than maybe the elephants at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya (where we were allowed to touch the elephants), that surfacing was as close as I've come to a real wild mammal in my life. And you could even debate if the elephants at Sheldrick are truly wild when they are being cared for and fed every day by humans. This is not something that happens regularly. 

I don't know what else really to say here. Kayaking on the Churchill River for maybe 90 minutes or so was an experience that connected us to wildlife right up there with the best and most intimate experiences we've ever had. Right up there with elephants and chimpanzees and mountain gorillas. And if there's a common thread there, it's exceptional intelligence. 

We are so lucky that for whatever reason, someone at our tour company decided to add kayaking with belugas as a freebie experience onto our agenda. The Zodiac ride was in many ways better than kayaking (particularly considering the work required to paddle the kayak around) but the kayak inches from the water was the most supremely intimate way to see the belugas. 

And that divorce kayak thing? We are still married. We figured it out. Coordinating paddles and turning is way more difficult as a twosome. If we just had one person (me) just do all the paddling, it was way better. While it might be easy for me to view that solution as less than equitable, I didn't see it that way. Me paddling changed our kayak dynamic from one of conflict and focusing on each other and what we were doing to one of calm and focusing on the whales. And that's exactly what we were supposed to be doing. 

For some reason, I love kayaking pictures with our paddles in them. It's a symbol for me of the freedom that those oars give us. Those things powered by our own strength moves us through water. No motors or anything else, just one stroke after another. When there are whales in the pictures they are that much better.

I like the calm of the picture below. How could we imagine a better way to spend a couple of hours on a summer evening?