Page 42 - Travel Guide to Canada 2019
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WHALE WATCHING, TADOUSSAC, QC • LE QUÉBEC MARITIME/MARC LOISELLE/TOURISME CÔTE-NORD-MANICOUGAN
as well as Prince Albert National Park in DIVING IN northern Manitoba. You can get close by
Saskatchewan and Riding Mountain The beaver, Canada’s national symbol, is an boat tour and listen to them chattering via
National Park in Manitoba. aquatic rodent with a large paddle-shaped a hydrophone. Belugas are so gentle you
It is awe-inspiring, but rare, to see an tail and prized thick fur. Found in water- can venture out on the water in kayaks for
immense herd of handsomely antlered ways throughout Canada, beavers are a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
caribou stretching far across the tundra. industrious, felling trees with their sharp Orca, a.k.a. killer whales, cruise all
From late April to early May, Arctic Haven buckteeth and building lodges and dams. oceans, but are particularly abundant
Wilderness Lodge in Nunavut will take you Primarily nocturnal, they are best viewed around Johnstone Strait near northeastern
to watch the migration of approximately at dusk. One popular place to spot them is Vancouver Island and in the Salish Sea near
250,000 caribou. The “Big Three” wildlife Jacques-Cartier Park near Québec City. It Victoria. Extremely intelligent animals that
observation package off ered by Inuit off ers beaver-related activities from May to live in matrilineal pods, their high dorsal
Adventures in the Nunavik, Québec region September. fi ns slice elegantly through the water.
includes excursions with Inuit guides in Beluga whales, not much bigger than Numerous boat tours are off ered. You may
search of the polar bear in its natural dolphins and white in colour, are called the also see grey whales up to 15 m (49 ft.) long,
habitat, witnessing the great caribou canaries of the sea for their constant especially around Tofi no during their
migration and encounters with small singing. Every summer about 3,000 belugas migrations in March and October, as well as
herds of muskox. gather in the Churchill River delta in dolphins, seals, and sea lions.
The Atlantic coast and the St. Lawrence
FOX KITS, SK • SHUTTERSTOCK/PICTUREGUY River are also prime locales for whale
watching. Every summer some 15 species—
including minke, humpback, fi nback and
right whales—swim into the Bay of Fundy
to mate, play and feast on the bountiful food
churned up twice daily by the powerful tides.
Salmon live in both the Atlantic and
Pacifi c oceans and are renowned for
spawning, that is fi ghting their way
upstream to lay eggs and die in the same
freshwater location where they were
hatched. Spawning salmon, the lifeblood of
the west coast, provide food for bears, foxes,
wolves, eagles and more, who then fertilize
the forest with their droppings. Spawning
salmon can be seen in fall and the fi rst half
of winter at many locations, often far inland.
