Whales Tale

The Beluga That Met My Family
The immature beluga pictured on the cover of Vol.16 No 03 of the DownHomer magazine was touring Notre Dame Bay or more specifically the Bay of Exploits, swimming and playing with anyone who would get in the water with it…aggressively seeking out humans to be social with. This whale seemed to be on a collision course with my family and Charlie Falk and his son Chuck figure in my story also.
My parents are both Newfoundlanders though I was born away, I’ve had the privilege of celebrating at least ten of my fifty some birthdays in Newfoundland, most often on grandma’’s beach behind my mom’’s ancestral home on Exploits Islands. For the summer of ‘‘02 my wife and I planned a gathering in Exploits. My eighty year old mom, Lorraine Collins nee Manuel the matriarch of a family reunion that would include two of her great grandkids, one (Nate) only two months old and on his first trip to Exploits. I did my first pilgrimage when I was one and our daughter Skye was three months old when she did her first, so there is a long history of us trekking to Exploits of which my mom is extremely and deservedly proud.
This whale story actually begins in St.Johns a few days after we’d arrived in Argentia. We had visited family, toured the sights and were heading north to Central to make ready our excursion to Exploits. I called Lindy Rideout a teacher/kayak builder from Cottlesville to see about getting a kayak. He told me he was about to go paddle around with a beluga that had shown up in the harbour, which he did and the Downhomer ran his letter and photo last fall (Vol.15 No.,04). This was my first contact with the whale.
We made our way to Gander where I arranged a lift to Exploits so I could open up and clean the house before the throng descended. Nobody had been in the house for a couple of years. Through the magic of cell phones I called my wife in Gander where she was having adventures of her own. She and my cousin Sheila Woolfrey had done a tour to Twillingate and met up with an excited Charlie Falk and his dripping wet son Chuck, fresh from their close encounter with the whale. It was an irresistible tale, so off they went to see for themselves. When they arrived in Summerford the wharf was crowded with gawkers and at least a dozen kids were in the water with the whale. Not one to miss an opportunity, Sheila climbed right down into the sea, clothes and all and got some major thrills when the gregarious whale came right on over to greet her. So this was my second contact with the whale, albeit both were so far– just by phone.
Two days later, after much scrubbing and sweeping, the house was in some semblance of order and I left Exploits with Sheila’s husband Gary and friends Elwood and Eilleen Anstey headed to back to Summerford. And there on the wharf was a group of people, all watching the kids in the water with the beluga. The whale immediately came over to greet us. I think it is attracted by the motor sounds, tones and pitches. It swam slowly by the boat allowing all of us aboard to put our hands on it. She felt like clean wet leather. It did this three times and then stopped adjacent to me with it’s one eye about eighteen inches away and stared at me with an intelligence that I had not experienced from a non-human creature. A novel, interesting and somewhat unnerving experience. It then went off towards a sea-doo that had arrived. At this point cousin Gary said ” if your going to swim with it “now’s your chance”. So I handed him my camera, doffed my shirt and dove off the bow of the boat. When I opened my eyes I was nose to nose with the whale. It startled me but at no time did I feel fear. The whale rolled over underneath me and I put my hand on it’s belly, then, when it turned over again it floated up underneath me, I was virtually on it’s back. I did not want to squeeze it and I didn’t want to grab its fins but there I was, through no effort of my own, riding on it’s back. We broke the surface and swam directly towards the boat while Gary was frantically taking pictures. All the while, the beluga was making chittering and clicking sounds that we interpreted as an expression of the pleasure and excitement it was having frolicking with us. When I got out of the water and left, the last thing I saw was the whale pushing some kids in a toy rubber raft around the harbour. This was my third and very thrilling contact with this whale.
The story didn’t end there though…a week or two later more family and friends (Manuels and Lillys) made the trek out to join us in Exploits and when they arrived Aunt Mabel said, ” we met your friend this morning”. I was puzzled as I couldn’t imagine who she was talking about. Apparently, when they were leaving Little Burnt Bay the very same beluga showed up and they too experienced it’s exuberant camaraderie. Contact number four and pretty much our entire entourage had been touched by this phenomenal creature.
After three amazing weeks in Exploits, another birthday bonfire on the beach and everyone else had departed home to all parts of the country, my wife and I continued our travels to the west coast and up the Northern Peninsula. Naturally I told my whale tale and because of this, heard of other people’s close encounters. There’d been a young beluga visiting around St.Anthony and yet another around Codroy (Echo), both of whom were exhibiting the same gregarious behaviour and aggressively socializing with humans. As far as I know this is not their natural behaviour. They usually travel in pods. So all this and the fact that it wasn’t just a lone whale exhibiting this behaviour made it all the more intriguing.
When I arrived home I did some internet investigations, telling my story and asking for information. I received a letter telling me that what I had done was illegal. There is a ten thousand dollar fine for harassing whales and swimming with them is considered harassment. The person responding said my story was interesting and that she would forward my questions on to someone else. Not too long after that I received another reply from an organization that is studying this beluga phenomena. They have profiled and documented on a website a number of belugas found around Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence demonstrating this wonderful yet strange conduct. None of the belugas on the site are the one we met, but the one from the west coast (Echo) who had been wounded by a propeller is there.
I do understand why maybe humans shouldn’t interact so closely with these whales. If they are fed by humans, which I personally did not see happen, but undoubtedly does, they could become dependent and therefore at risk. But I concur with Charlie Falk about getting in the water with a wild whale. That whale was seeking people out and contact would have been difficult to avoid. It was the thrill of a lifetime and I did not feel fear or the cold of the water, I was so completely in the moment. My wife and I have a running joke: someone must have hired these whales to do PR (Public Relations) because once you have met one in this fashion you feel bonded, would never harm one and would do anything for them.
This is not my first whale experience. When I was a young teenager an older cousin and I sat in a punt surrounded by a group of minkies wondering if they ever came up under boats. I’ve watched from a headland as fishermen herded them away from their nets. I’ve played guitar sitting on a stool sized whale vertebrae and have whale bone carvings in my home. I have listened to an old outport fisherman friend tell me about a whale that had visited him on a daily basis at a certain fishing ground. In 2002 my grandkids got to see a whale and heard over and over how grandpa rode one. Every time I am in Newfoundland, I see whales. Even this past year, though I spent more time in the interior trout fishing, every time we went to a coast, we saw whales. I feel deeply privileged.
I have gotten quite a bit of mileage out of this whale story. When I start to tell it I say ” last summer I rode a whale”. Eyes widen and jaws drop. I understand, they picture some Moby Dick style leviathan with a tiny human standing on it’s back. I love and savour the moment and even let it drag a second or two before I proceed to bring them back to reality and tell them about swimming with a smooth, sleek, highly intelligent, twelve to sixteen foot beluga. And what an amazing experience it was!

~ by gwcollins on January 14, 2008.