the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine
Park boundaries. We worked with
Groupe de recherche et d’éducation
sur les mammifères marins [Group for
Research and Education on Marine
Mammals] (GREMM) scientists to
make images of beluga whales. The
St. Lawrence belugas are a beloved and
well-studied population in the midst
of a desperate downturn due to an
inexplicable increase in infant mortality.
One spunky beluga approached us out
of the green gloom. He puckered his blubbery lips and
blew a bubble, cautiously advanced and ever so slowly
opened his pink mouth wide and then wider, trying to taste
test the Seacam housing.
Famed Quebec divers Paul Boissinot and Georges
Mamelonet met us in Percé, Quebec, to guide us to
Bonaventure Island in the gulf near Percé. Bonaventure
supports one of the largest northern gannet colonies in
the world, and great herds of gray seals rest here during
their migrations. We were photographing 12-pound
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From top: Boldt Castle, shown here in the fall, sits in the heart of
the Thousands Islands, St. Lawrence River. A lion’s mane jellyfish
moves gently through the rich shallows of Bonne Bay Fjord in
Newfoundland. Jennifer Hayes swims with a decades-old
female lake sturgeon on her way to the spawning grounds.
A few-days-old harp seal pup, called a
white coat, uses a piece of ice to block
the relentless winds that sweep across
the sea ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
