Newfoundland whale watching: Witless Bay, Trinity and St. John's

Newfoundland whale watching runs from May to September, the animal you are most likely to meet is the humpback, and July is the strongest month. Adult fares start at C$74 before tax at Bay Bulls and reach C$120 in St. John's. Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism says the world's largest population of humpback whales returns to this coast each year between May and September — and for two or three weeks in June, the icebergs are still coming south while the whales are coming north.

That overlap is the province's famous selling point and it deserves a caveat the brochures skip. The tourism board itself warns that many factors vary from year to year, and O'Brien's states plainly that icebergs do not reach Bay Bulls waters every summer. Book June for the chance of both. Book July for the whales.

Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism lists whale hot spots right around the island — Signal Hill, Cape Spear, Trinity, Cape Bonavista, Twillingate, White Bay, the Strait of Belle Isle, St. Vincent's, Cape St. Mary's, Cape Race, Witless Bay and St. Anthony. Most of those are viewpoints you can stand on for nothing. This page is about the four where you can buy a seat on a boat.

Four ports carry the traffic: downtown St. John's, Bay Bulls just south of it for the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, Trinity on the Bonavista Peninsula for small-boat trips, and Twillingate up north in Iceberg Alley. Our partner sells only two Newfoundland products, neither of them a dedicated whale boat, so most of this page points you at operators who take bookings direct.

Which whales, and when

Everything on that chart follows one small fish. Fisheries and Oceans Canada describes Atlantic capelin moving inshore in summer to spawn on beaches, rolling onto sand and fine gravel at night and on the high tide. The humpbacks, minke whales, puffins and gannets all arrive to eat the same run, which is why the operators converge on mid-June to mid-August as the peak and why the whales thin out through September.

The puffin numbers are worth stating properly, because they are the reason Bay Bulls exists as a tour port. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador records more than 260,000 nesting pairs of Atlantic puffins across the reserve's four islands — Gull, Green, Great and Pee Pee — which makes it the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America. The same reserve holds the world's second-largest Leach's storm-petrel colony at more than 620,000 pairs.

The boats, and how they differ

There is no zodiac culture on the Avalon and no big-catamaran culture at Trinity. Choose the coast and you have largely chosen the boat.

The Bay Bulls pair are the closest thing to a direct comparison anywhere in this guide: two long-established family companies, same village, same reserve, different answers. Gatherall's runs one large custom catamaran and charges C$94; O'Brien's runs four vessels with a fully enclosed heated cabin and charges C$74. Gatherall's argues that its decks and range let it reach distant whales faster; O'Brien's argues for enclosed comfort and four scheduled departures.

Trinity is the other extreme. Sea of Whales Adventures runs two open inflatables, Bluefin and Black Sails, with a maximum of 12 passengers, and it photographs whales on every trip for a long-running identification catalogue run by a crew member with two environmental-science degrees. Trinity Eco-Tours runs RHIBs certified by Transport Canada for up to 11 passengers and supplies one-piece flotation suits to every adult — with the caveat, published on its own site, that there is no washroom on board and there are no children's sizes, so children wear a life jacket instead.

Two small-boat catches worth knowing before you drive two and a half hours. Sea of Whales needs a minimum of six adults to run a trip, and its published terms warn that the departure time and even the departure place can change — which is not a flaw so much as what a 12-seat boat on an exposed coast means. Trinity Eco-Tours says iceberg-season launches may leave from Trinity, Elliston or Bonavista depending on where the ice has drifted.

Trip length is short here by Canadian standards — 90 minutes to three hours rather than the four and five hours common on the Pacific side. That is not a shortcut. The whales feed close to shore on capelin, so the boats do not need to burn an hour each way getting to them, and a 90-minute Bay Bulls trip can put you alongside a humpback twenty minutes after leaving the wharf.

Where you depart

St. John's is the low-friction option. Iceberg Quest departs the downtown waterfront within walking distance of the hotels and B&Bs, runs two hours, and shows you Cape Spear, Cabot Tower and Fort Amherst from the water. Departures in peak season are 9:00, 11:30, 14:00 and 16:30, thinning out at the ends of the season.

Bay Bulls is 30 to 40 minutes south of downtown with free on-site parking, and both operators run a paid shuttle from St. John's hotels if you have no car — Gatherall's publishes C$35 an adult and C$28 a youth.

Trinity is about two and a half hours from St. John's according to both local operators, on a peninsula that sits inside the Discovery UNESCO Global Geopark. It is worth a night rather than a day trip.

Twillingate is four and a half hours from St. John's and an hour and twenty from Gander, according to Iceberg Quest, and it is the better iceberg bet of the two Iceberg Quest ports — the operator calls it the heart of Iceberg Alley. Departures there are 9:30, 13:00 and 16:00 in peak season, and the rates are identical to St. John's.

What the day costs

Newfoundland is mid-priced by Canadian standards and much cheaper than the Pacific coast, but the 15% HST is real and Iceberg Quest states it separately, so add it before you compare anything to a partner price.

Two things do not appear on that receipt and should. The first is weather clothing: every operator on this coast tells you to dress in layers with a waterproof outer shell, and Iceberg Quest adds a hat and mittens early in the season. The second is the shuttle, if you are carless and heading to Bay Bulls rather than sailing from downtown.

Two plans, hour by hour

The first is the St. John's version, built around a late-morning cruise and no car. The second drives south to Bay Bulls for the puffin colony and comes back with the afternoon still usable.

What our partner sells here

Prices are checked regularly. Two products, and only one of them goes looking for whales.

The St. John's listing is a four-hour packaged day: hotel pick-up, Cape Spear, Signal Hill and downtown, then the Iceberg Quest cruise. It costs more than booking the two-hour cruise direct because you are buying the land tour as well — worth it if you have no car and one day, poor value if you were going to walk Signal Hill anyway. The Bonne Bay catamaran is a Gros Morne fjord and Tablelands trip on the west coast; treat any whale as a bonus.

The reserve rules are the ones that catch people out. You cannot land on the islands without a permit, and boat operation inside the reserve is regulated through the nesting season from 1 April to 1 September. On top of that, Fisheries and Oceans Canada requires 100 metres from whales in Canadian waters, 200 metres from any whale resting or with a calf, and 400 metres from anything listed as endangered or threatened.

Read the cancellation clauses next to each other, because they differ more than the fares do. Gatherall's will reschedule you free at any point and cancel free up to three hours before departure. Iceberg Quest keeps 25% if you cancel a day ahead and everything if you cancel inside 24 hours. That is not a reason to avoid either — it is a reason to buy the flexible one if your week is uncertain.

Operators on this water

Iceberg Quest is the St. John's and Twillingate answer: two-hour narrated cruises, open decks over a heated cabin with washrooms, a bar and light snacks, traditional music and a screech-in at sea. It is family operated, with Captain Barry Rogers as president, and it sails from Pier 6 on Harbour Drive in St. John's and Pier 52 in Twillingate. Rates are identical at both ports — C$120 for an adult, C$100 for a student 18 to 24, C$75 for youth 9 to 17 and C$65 for a child 2 to 8, all before 15% HST, according to icebergquest.com.

Gatherall's and O'Brien's are the Witless Bay pair, and the full comparison sits on their own review page. Gatherall's dates its first tour boat to about 1984 and names its vessels Gaffer through Gaffer VI; O'Brien's was founded in 1985 by two brothers and runs four boats plus an event centre. Neither guarantees a whale. One guarantees puffins.

The Trinity operators are small, owner-run and genuinely different in kind: inflatables for eleven or twelve, no cabin, flotation suits, and skippers who count the same individual whales year after year. Sea of Whales is run by a Transport Canada certified captain with an adventure-tourism background and a crew member doing photo-identification across Trinity and Bonavista bays; Trinity Eco-Tours pairs its boats with a lodge and a restaurant and is a World Cetacean Alliance partner. If your reason for coming is photographs rather than a first sighting, this is where to spend the drive.

The verdict

For most visitors the right booking is a Bay Bulls morning in the first half of July: humpbacks at their peak, puffins still in numbers, free parking and a choice between C$74 enclosed and C$94 on the big catamaran. Take O'Brien's if price and warmth matter, Gatherall's if you want the decks and the puffin guarantee.

If you have one morning and no car, the Iceberg Quest cruise from downtown St. John's is the efficient trip — two hours, no transfer, and the best angle on Cape Spear there is. If you have three days and a camera, drive to Trinity and take a zodiac instead.

Come in June only if you accept the gamble on icebergs. Come in late September only if a minke whale in flat calm water sounds like enough — and reserve rather than turn up, because Iceberg Quest states that it runs only a limited number of departures early and late in the season.

One last practical point that costs nothing. The province's own list of whale viewpoints includes Signal Hill and Cape Spear, both a short drive from downtown St. John's. Spend an hour at Cape Spear with binoculars on a July morning before you spend anything on a boat; if the humpbacks are working the headland, you will see them from the cliff, and you will know what kind of week you have walked into.

The season calendar sets this coast against the others month by month, Atlantic Canada covers the wider region, and the Bay of Fundy page is where to go if you want right whales and the highest tides in the world instead.