Whale watching from Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay fjord out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence is some experience! Due to extremely high tides from the Atlantic Ocean all the way inland through the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Saguenay fjord, the water is 97% salt. 

As the salt water pushes down the full 100+ km. length of the Saguenay, and is topped with the inflowing water from Lac St. Jean, the resulting 50% saline water gives birth to myriads of small fish and plankton. Whales feast on those, consuming from 2 to 5 tons average per day, depending on size and species.

Immediately as we took off from Tadoussac Bay on our whale watching expedition, several pure white beluga whales gamboled around the boat. Then, on the way back three hours later, we were treated to half a dozen mother belugas together with their brown-colored newborns! What an awesome sight! Even the tour animator was so excited, repeating over and over again: they were just born; they have just given birth!

St. Marguerite’s bay is a protected inlet a few kilometers inside the fjord, where the belugas give birth. Then the mothers escort their babies immediately back out to sea. What a privilege to witness this phenomenon! Belugas are the only whales that stay in the area year round.

Another case of being at the right place at the right time was our close encounter with a number of humpback whales. They had just arrived three days before us and only stay in the region for 6 weeks! This was the middle of August. They are the only whales that raise their mighty tail as they dive. What a show! They are the size of 3 elephants.  

One humpback dove right underneath the boat. It can take up to ten minutes for them to resurface, so it’s always a waiting game, wondering when and where they will do so. This time I chose to run to the opposite side of the ship and sure enough, there it was, surfacing right in front of me just as I got there! It made a couple of shallow plunges as if to entertain us before taking a sudden steep dive and showing off its massive tail in the process.

There were a number of other species we saw as well, including several Minkes, one of the smallest variety, and one fin whale in the distance. The fin whale is the second largest whale in the world, after the blue whale, and is the size of 10 elephants standing in a row!

Several groups of seals also frolicked around us. They had good reason to be happy. Their only predator, Orca the killer whale, does not come in these waters.

The scenic shoreline, combined with the beauty of North America’s only fjord, the invigorating salt air, and seeing such a diverse array of marine mammals so close at hand made this trip one of my most memorable experiences ever!