Whale Watching in Rivière du Loup Québec ⋆ chic everywhere

At the end of last summer we did a big road trip through the Eastern Provinces of Canada. We drove through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI back through New Brunswick, down through Maine into Massachusetts to see Boston and then back home via New York. It was a huge whirlwind of a trip that we did driving our EV. One of our first day trips was whale watching in Rivière du Loup Québec.

Whale Watching in Rivière du Loup

We arrived in Rivière du Loup Québec mid morning after driving from just outside Montreal. We drove straight to the harbour to get out tickets. We wanted to make sure that we got the CAA discount my husband had found and for some reason that meant we had to get the tickets in person. Everything we had read about the tour said that it would get cold on the boat even though it was a warm summer day onshore. Plus we had already missed the morning boat so we bought tickets for the early afternoon departure.

After returning from a quick lunch we lined up to file onto the boat. There really isn’t any benefit to getting on first except finding a good place to sit. That being said everyone moves around the boat as the tour goes on so I wouldn’t fuss too much about that. However the boat does leave at a specific time so I would not show up late as you might miss your tour.

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Each of us had a back pack filled with warmer layers. We were in shorts and t-shirts on land but it did not take long before we needed to layer up. Make sure to pack long pants, sweaters and jackets. We had spring jackets but packable down would be appropriate. You might even want to bring stretchy gloves and hats. I was thankful for the scarf I packed.

As soon as we got out into open water we started seeing a mix of whales and seals. We saw Belugas closest to the harbor and then seals and minke whales further out and humpback whales closer to the mouth of the St. Lawrence river.

The entire tour was over three hours. I found it fascinating. Seeing the whales crest and the seals frolic was really amazing. However our youngest who was almost 8 at the time of this trip found it too long. There were families with very young children and I would argue they got nothing out of this trip. They could not see most of what was going on as they were unable to see over the railings. The parents spent most of the tour managing the little ones instead of enjoying the view.

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I would recommend this trip for tweens and teens but not for younger children.

Aside from what to wear and what age group would enjoy the trip I would recommend packing a zoom lens. I took so many pictures. Especially of the humpbacks cresting. But while usually editing improves my pictures the amount of cropping required to zoom into the whales degraded my photos. A zoom would have improved what I captured.

I will be the first to admit that this trip made for a long day. But it was so worth it. The tour was in both french and english. We were able to get a history of the area and how the conservation efforts help the wildlife of the St. Lawrence. It was just so amazing to see the whales and seals. We were lucky to see so much activity. We saw three humpbacks crest one after the other. It was so fantastic. Even our tour guide impressed upon us that we saw quite a bit of whale activity.