After our stay in Québec we rented a car and drove to the small town of Tadoussac that suits on the mighty St Lawrence River. I say mighty as you can barely see the other side. The drive was easy and ended with crossing a smaller river via the free ferry service.
There are various boats available to go and see the whales. You can go in an inflatable that seems to require wearing special waterproofs, but we opted for the large ship that has indoor areas and refreshments. The weather was not great and it was raining hard as we walked to the boat. We saw seals and porpoises on the way out before we spotted our first whale. This humpback surfaced several times and came close to one of the other boats. We have seen humpbacks before in Australia when we got closer, but this was still exciting.
Later we came across this large group of grey seals that seemed to have found good feeding. I briefly saw another whale that may have been a minke. We did not see the resident white belugas on this trip. They sometimes get blue whales there too.
The photos are not great as it was so wet. It did improve on the way back.
We are staying at the Tadoussac Hotel, which is the largest in town. Only 800 people live here, but it is full of tourists. I expect they really did hunt whales originally but now do well from showing off the live ones.
On our last night in Québec city we sampled the local delicacy of poutine. It makes for a hearty meal
Last night we ate at a small restaurant that had locally brewed beer and good seafood.
We are getting different sides of Canada with our locations so far. I can imagine the winters are tough. There are some old buildings here from the pioneer times when just surviving was hard. We cannot really complain about a little rain.
Tomorrow we hope to see bears. Stay tuned.