Alissa White-Gluz Instagram – Remembering the time a whale visited Montréal.
I cannot express to you how surreal this was.
Montréal is nowhere near the ocean. It is an island (centred around a mountain; Mont-Royal = “Montréal”) surrounded by many satellite islands in the Saint-Lawrence river. Whale territory ends about 500km North-East of here in the estuary, the magical junction of the river and the ocean. Having a whale come this far inland is exceedingly rare, especially alone.
It was 2020, and the pandemic was just becoming a reality to most of us. Everything was super strange. Romanticized reports of nature reclaiming her space were everywhere. Needless to say, it felt pretty insane to hear that a humpback whale was now dancing around our city.
I strapped my camera bag on, hopped on my bicycle, and headed towards the Old Port of Montreal (a favourite spot for visitors; it’s quite beautiful). I am nowhere near the level of the wildlife photographers I admire (I never have time off work to go on photo safaris), so I felt like this was a rare opportunity to capture some frames of a somewhat exotic animal. I hope to be able to meet many more in the future.
Every day for about a week, getting on my bicycle and going to hang out with this whale was the highlight of my life in such a tumultuous time. Funny enough, a local news station reported on the whale and actually caught me in the act (swipe to see).
However, I couldn’t help but grow increasingly concerned that a juvenile, female humpback was staying here, alone, for so long.
I ended up finding her in 4 different locations – hence the bicycle being handy to allow me to get places cars can’t go. On the day that I last saw her, I ended up going to Parc Jean-Drapeau after a few people in the port told me she had been recently spotted there. This park is on a little island called Île Saint-Hélène, next to Montreal, which is the grounds for lots of music festivals like Osheaga and Heavy MTL. On the map in slide 4 I have marked the different spots I found her in. This footage was filmed at the location of the highest blue heart on the map.
(Continued in the comments) | Posted on 06/Jan/2025 04:46:29
