Tadoussac, Quebec
At the mouth of the Saguenay River in northern Quebec lies a small town called Tadoussac where every summer, from mid-June through September, the largest mammal in the world, the Blue Whale, comes to feed.

The whales gather at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River at sites where underwater channels create an upwelling of nutrient rich waters. Here the estuary supports an abundance of marine life including one of the most accessible concentrations of marine mammals in the world.

We visited in September 2005.

It is a pleasant six hour drive from Montreal and upon nearing Tadoussac, the scenery is quite beautiful. Rounding the final corner to Tadoussac, you realize the only way across is by a free ferry service operating every half hour to cross the incredible Saguenay River.

The Saguenay River is a major river of Quebec, Canada. It drains Lac Saint-Jean in the Laurentian Highlands, leaving at Alma and running east, and passes at the city of Saguenay. It drains into the Saint Lawrence River at Tadoussac. Tadoussac is a small town but offers big adventures.

We boarded a zodiac early our first morning greeted by a beautiful day with clear blue skies in search if Blue Whales and we were rewarded often but the real fun came the next day when the four of us decided to rent ocean kayaks. A half hour out, I spotted a Blue Whale and paddled furiously to get within a hundred or so feet of this wonder of the ocean and we could feel his presence and he arced out of the water on multiple occasions.

The next day, we drove up the coast to where the local dive operation is and sat on the banks watching Blue Whale intermingle with Belugas just offshore most of the day.

The water was very cold, 36 - 39 degrees, and I really wanted no part of renting a dry suit and entering such firgid waters but for those of you so inlcined, the entry was quite easy and the waters were crystal clear and from our perch atop the rocks we could watch the divers descend to roughly sixty feet.

My crew was a motley one... but happy enough. Cody, my step-son and I sat watching Beluga's swim past just offshore flanking Blue Whales one afternoon.

Pretty incredible place.