The Coming Collision Between Whales and Tankers on British Columbia’s Coast
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By Laura Trethewey.
Decades after they were hunted to local extinction, fin whales are recovering in the Kitimat fjord system—only to be threatened by a booming LNG industry.
Before I make the long trek to visit Hermann Meuter at his research station on a lonely stretch of British Columbia’s north coast, he tries to lower my expectations of seeing a fin whale. Perched at the southern tip of Gil Island, he’s observed thousands of whales from his lab in Whale Channel, but visitors have been skunked before. As we motor into Whale Channel on a bright May day, Meuter changes his tune. He’s feeling confident, almost positive in fact, that we’ll see a whale. While he was collecting me at the ferry, his wife called to tell him she had spotted fin whales from shore. Meuter has an inkling that the whales are still here, still circling, perhaps right beneath the boat.
Dressed in his usual boating attire of a bright-red survival suit and tall rain boots, Meuter doesn’t have to wait long before a puff rises from the water, as though the ocean has spritzed perfume into the air. A few hundred meters away, three black backs slice the surface, and Meuter quietly shifts the boat into gear. He motors up to the pod—his research permit allows him within 50 meters—and cuts the engine. For a few exhilarating moments, time slows as the whales and boat glide next to one another. Two adults and a calf surface two, three, four times, and on the fourth exhale they crest just a little higher, their sleek backs catching the morning sun before disappearing below.
Meuter snaps photos of the encounter, all of which will be added to a growing catalog of fin whales he’s photographed over the past two decades.
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