“Hello, Jennifer! This is Mr. Quickly,” I heard a voice excitedly shout through my phone. “Turn the boat around. The whales are here!”
I leaned over to Captain Mike and told him to steer back the way we came. I put Mr. Quickly on speaker, and he directed Captain Mike to the whales, as the frigid sea salt spray buffeted our eager faces.
I was in Newfoundland, riding with Badger Bay Boat Tours to see the icebergs that had floated down from Greenland, but once Mr. Quickly spotted the whales, we changed course to follow them instead. We sped through the mouth of Badger Bay next to Triton, a fishing town of about 900 people in northeastern Newfoundland, as Mr. Quickly—a nickname for Terry Whalen, a volunteer employee at the Triton Sperm Whale Pavilion—watched both Captain Mike and me in our boat, and the whales, through the pavilion's windows with a view of the water.
Whalen is a retired schoolteacher. He got the nickname Mr. Quickly because he constantly told kids to move, well, quickly. At the whale pavilion, a waterside observatory housed in an immense barn, his volunteer work earned him a second nickname: the Whale Whisperer. He has the uncanny ability to know exactly how long a whale will dive and stay submerged, and where it will break the surface, based on his observation from the pavilion.
In the waters around Triton, whale season lasts from late April to September. Twenty-two species show up during this period, coming to feed on krill, capelin, and squid in the tens of thousands. The pavilion itself is watched over by the skeleton of a 40-foot sperm whale suspended from the ceiling, and a wall of windows look out over the bay. Here, in the summertime, Whalen teaches visitors about whales daily.
“I grew up and I didn’t have a clue about whales,” Whalen told me, explaining that he studied the marine mammals largely via the internet. Born and raised in Triton, perhaps it was fated that Whalen now a thing or two. “I’m just touching the tip of the iceberg. If you want to learn something bad enough, you’ll learn it.”
As for Captain Mike, he's a commercial fisherman with a buoyant excitement for his work, which also includes taking visitors out on boat tours and hosting lobster boils at his island vacation home. Everyone calls him Captain Mike, Skipper Mike, or just Mike. He drives the boat for most of the tours his company runs; if he doesn’t, then expect to find his brother, Skipper Clarey. (The Captain title is non-transferable.)
I got in touch with Captain Mike—and Whalen too—through the tourism board of Newfoundland, who worked hard to give me the best chance possible to see whales, even though it was only June and the whale season was just picking up speed. They put me up at The Bluewater Inn, a guesthouse right on the bay; gave me Whalen’s personal phone number; and set me up with Mike for an iceberg-sighting cruise with whale-spotting ambitions.
Once I was in Triton, Whalen and I created something of a whale sighting phone tree even before I was on the boat. If I saw a whale, I was to call Whalen at the pavilion, or on his wife’s cell phone, or at the town office, where Whalen told me either he would pick up, or someone else could tell me where he was. (Quite the chain, but we were committed.) If Whalen saw a whale, he’d call me or Captain Mike. If someone else saw one, they’d call Whalen, and he would call me.
Whalen made the first humpback whale sighting, as good fortune would have it. But I had missed Whalen’s call by about 15 minutes; he left a voicemail telling me and Captain Mike to turn around. Even so, when we called him back, he still knew exactly where we should go.
“The whales were heading into the bay for food, and then a boat scared them so they turned around,” Whalen said, his voice on speakerphone, his excitement audible even over the clamoring waves. “There’s two. They just did a deep dive, and should be coming up right by you in a minute.”
As if on cue, there they were, gliding up out of the water a short distance from the boat. After a few short dives, Captain Mike began to shout: “Tail! Tail!” And the humpback we were watching raised its caudal fin high in the air, before diving deep. For me, watching whales dive brings a moment of peace; as the predator dives down into the shimmering water, my heart settles into complete relaxation. This is nature at its peak.
Whalen’s ability seems like a super power, but it’s actually more science than anything. “I know the patterns,” he said. “They’ll come around the shoal chasing capelin. They’re going to exhale a certain amount of meters in the air.” He described how you can tell if it’s a short or deep dive depending on how high the tail goes up—if it does at all—and you can tell the direction they’re going by a slickness on the surface of the water. That last bit is called the whale’s footprint.
“The humpback especially is going to wave his tail at you,” Whalen said, waving his own hand and laughing. “It’s almost like he’s saying ‘see you later.’”
I thought of my whale-tail goodbyes the morning I left Triton. I walked over to the pavilion to offer my own parting words. There, a group of nine people, half of them speaking French, were watching the bay with Whalen.
“I’ve never seen a whale before,” a woman from Michigan said in passing. But just being near Whalen seems to summon the majestic creatures. Within minutes, a minke whale’s sleek back rose just above the surface of the water. Suddenly, everyone was pointing and talking, shouts of excitement in multiple languages. A pair of binoculars passed up and down the line. The minke receded beneath the surface.
I snapped a photo of Whalen and the group as a parting shot. In it, the Whale Whisperer of Triton stands in the middle of a line of people, pointing out to the water, showing the group exactly where they can expect to see a whale blessing its audience and surfacing for air. And then, right after I took the photograph, it did just that.
Visiting Triton, Newfoundland
Whether you’re a whale fanatic or want to experience the other wildlife of Triton (such as moose, bear, and dolphins), these activities that put you in the heart of the action.
Captain Mike does more than just iceberg and whale tours. He’s also a commercial fisherman; join him to pull up lobster pots or fishing nets, or accompany his family to their island cottage for a crab boil.
Triton is part of a seven-stop driving trail through northeastern Newfoundland, taking you to different spots for whale watching.
Hiking trails in the area
Triton and the nearby towns of Brighton and Robert’s Arm all have hiking trails, ranging from 2 to 15 miles. Enjoy ocean views, berry foraging, and picnic spots along the way.
