Humpback whales lived in the Broughton Archipelago year-round. According to longtime fishermen there were about seven in Knight Inlet, 3-4 in Kingcome Inlet and two in Fife Sound. People had names for the two in Fife: Barney (for a barnacle on his head) and The Missus. Sometimes the whales scratched themselves on the underside of the floating houses, and one man remembers rowing up to a sleeping humpack and touching it. In 1952 the whaler Nahmint came around northern Vancouver Island from Coal Harbour to kill the whales of the Broughton. The whales were easy targets, used to humans and their boats. There had been many inshore populations of humpback whales in British Columbia throughout the eastern coastline of Vancouver Island, each taken one after the next. Coal Harbour was the last whaling station in B.C. and it closed in 1968.

Humpback whales were not spotted in this area again until December 1980. In 1986 Raincoast photo-identified two in Knight Inlet. While killer whales are identified by their dorsal fins and saddle behind the dorsal, humpback whales are identified by the underside of their flukes. How does a researcher get a picture of the underside of a whale's tail? By waiting patiently for them to raise their flukes out of the water before making a deep dive.

Breaching humpback whale in the Broughton Archipelago (© Alexandra Morton)

Humpback whale flukes (© Alexandra Morton)

Raincoast has identified ten humpback whales that use the archipelago, some of which return every year. Two have brought their babies with them. Iwama comes in March for herring, Maude brought her baby Galen, but never returned after the salmon farms began using acoustic harassment on her summer feeding ground, Greenway Sound. Houdini came for the pilchard when they returned in 1997 and came back with her baby too. Phantom had a blow so loud it could be heard for miles.

The return of the humpback whale to the inshore waters of British Columbia is a sign of hope and a lesson that conservation can work to bring species back from the brink of extinction.

Silver and Nick in Knight Inlet (© Alexandra Morton)

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