Christine - Belugas and Bears

This is the start of a chapter in 'Angel on my Shoulder'

Belugas and bears at the edge of the Arctic

“Hello beautiful,” I think, rather than say it, to the huge, light-grey head with its kind eyes and gentle smile that rises beside me. I have been touched by a whale. A beluga whale, who has answered my tentative click-click-click against the fibreglass ocean-going kayak. It feels spiritual, humbling. I’m transported with a sense of ‘I can die now. Life is complete.’

It isn’t, of course, because I know that if I possibly can, I shall return to this little sub-Arctic town of Churchill, in Northern Manitoba, to repeat the experience.

Perhaps it’s anthropomorphic to think my beluga is smiling, as she turns her head to look curiously at me as if to say “You called me?” But surely that smile is extending into her eyes.

I know she’s a ‘she’ because this is where the Churchill River empties into Hudson Bay and she’s just one of a couple of hundred belugas who have gathered here to calve. I’m so excited, I almost capsize. I look over at one of my three companions and see that she has done exactly that. Our guide Terry, a marine biologist in a small boat with an outboard, will help her. Selfishly I turn again to my whale companion and find she’s been joined by half-a-dozen of her companions!

Now I’m being checked out by all of them, and it seems I meet with approval because I swear that’s a big smile of welcome on each face. And Oh! Look! Calves. Baby belugas! They’re being gently nudged along, out of harm’s reach, by ‘aunties’ who, I learned at last night’s lecture, help the pregnant mothers through, and after, the births. Their social structure is so sophisticated the belugas even have teenagers (willing ones!) who babysit.

We, journos all, are here for four days to view these charming cetaceans (and possibly polar bears) from all possible vantage points: from a sonar-equipped boat where we hear their sub-marine chatter; from kayaks and by snorkeling among them; and from a helicopter to view them en masse and to see just how numerous they are. (I’m told that as many as 2,000 have been counted at one visit. This is a sparse gathering apparently.)

Supper in a rustic restaurant showed us as a group high on the day’s experiences, especially for our capsize artist Heather.

“I couldn’t believe it! It crossed my mind I might be dinner.” Heather’s sparkling white smile flashed in her mahogany-hued face.

“No chance,” laughed Terry. “You can’t compete with delicious shellfish and squid! That’s their main diet.”