Thar she blows — in Canada

STE. ANNE DE PORTNEUF, Quebec -- We were on a little rubberized boat, bobbing in the choppy waters where the St. Lawrence River begins its wide yawn toward the sea, on the lookout for whales.

The speedy boat's captain, Yvon Belanger, gazed intently across the water. As we looked for fins to crease the water -- here, there, anywhere -- Belanger was looking for birds, he told us and three Quebecois in our group.

"You look for the birds, because they're feeding on fish," Belanger explained in French, with a brief, summary-style translation into English. "And, where there are fish, there could be whales."

Almost on cue, Belanger spotted at least a dozen birds floating in a group on the water, and sped the small, 10-person Zodiac toward them. He slowed as he approached, and we waited.

It was only a matter of minutes before we saw a black fin arch out of the water, about 40 yards away. It's a minke, the captain and whale researcher with a Swiss institute told us. Closer, another minke rose to breathe, sending a spout of water in the air as it let out a large exhale. Belanger maneuvered the boat, positioning us, as he calculated where the minke would resurface for its next breath.

Belanger guessed right. The next rise of this minke, about 30 feet long, was just off the boat's side. In the shimmering water, the black blob grew bigger as the whale approached, and then broke the surface, its sleek, black back and whitish sides arching gracefully like a rainbow before us. It spouted, and we could almost feel the mist from its breath.

In all, we saw a half-dozen of the smaller whales this day in mid- June last year, on an expedition with Belanger's whale-watching outfitter, Croisieres du Grand Heron. Here, small friendly communities like Ste. Anne de Portneuf are strung like beads on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The scenery is bountiful, and so are the whales. Sightings of these graceful mammals are so commonplace that locals just park on the St. Lawrence's banks to view them.

The whales -- minke, fin, humpback, the pearl-white beluga and the world's largest mammal, the blue whale -- gather in the St. Lawrence from May through September to feast on a heaping buffet served up by nature. Along this stretch of the river, roughly from Tadoussac (about 3 1/2 hours' drive from Quebec City) to Forestville, the saltwater tides from the Atlantic churn the nutrient-rich waters of the freshwater St. Lawrence. The result: an endless supply of zooplankton and krill, the whales' main diet.

According to Veronik de la Cheneliere, a biologist for the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals in Tadoussac, the St. Lawrence -- Canada's most important river -- is one of a "few places in the world where you can see so many types of whales, so close to shore and so far inland."

De la Cheneliere said it's also unusual to find whales in a river, but because the currents create these food zones so far inland, "whales have a strong incentive to travel the extra distance." Although the beluga can be found in the St. Lawrence year-round, other species, like the humpback, head south to warmer waters in the winter.

Many whale tour companies operate along Route 138, the main road hugging the St. Lawrence, so you can shop around. We found the best way to view the whales is in a Zodiac, because the boats are small and easily maneuvered in the open water, giving us the best chance to see the mammals up close.

Whale watching is highly dependent on the weather. The calmer the water, the better the odds of a sighting, tour operators say, because it makes it easier to spot the whales' telltale, plumelike spouts against the horizon. Quebec's weather is notoriously temperamental in the spring and early summer, so travelers should set aside an extra day or two to hedge against it turning foul.

It rained our second day, which canceled our booking for a whale tour in Essipit. Dejected, we stumbled on the Cap de Bon Desir national park, near the town of Grand Bergeronnes. There, we took a path to a covered lookout, where a young volunteer happily spoke about whales, using charts to punctuate his presentation, and lent us binoculars. To our surprise, we saw at least a dozen whales through the mist. One of them was a blue whale, the volunteer told us, but it was too far away to tell for sure.

On sunny days, smooth rocks at the water's edge offer an inviting perch for viewing whales hunting below in 60-foot-deep waters.

Also at Cap de Bon Desir is a replica lighthouse, with a functioning foghorn, and a mini-aquarium with crabs, starfish, and other marine life found in the St. Lawrence's reefs.

The next day was clear, and we went out with the Innu, an Indian tribe in Essipit, also known as the Montagnais. We had barely gotten out of the cove when the radio crackled. Our captain, Hugues Durocher, sped us to a spot on the river where a fisherman had reported spotting a whale.

The tip was a good one: Nearby, three fin whales breached at different intervals. Unlike at Ste. Anne, however, four other tour operators had gotten the same news as we did, and the boats, one of them a huge double-decker, circled the whales. We felt as if we were harassing these fins, rather than just observing them.

We returned to Ste. Anne, where our gracious hosts at the bed-and- breakfast La Nichee shared in our stories of the day, even as they endured my telling them in French. The next morning, Joachim and Camille Tremblay served up a hearty breakfast of eggs, pancakes with creamy, homemade maple syrup and fruit cut in the shape of birds, butterflies and miniature whales.

After three days, each of them successful in whale sightings, it was time to leave. The sun was low on the horizon as we waited at the dock in Forestville for the evening ferry to the St. Lawrence's south shore. In the calm water of the harbor, a half-dozen minkes popped up and down, like children playing "Marco Polo."

We stood at the pier, mesmerized. The locals shared bottles of wine, and paid the whales no mind. They had seen this many times before.

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