The ocean is clear and still. You are gazing out from a thin wooden deck of a rough strewn cabin, upon a rocky outcrop over looking Squally Channel, near Hartley Bay on the northwest coast of British Columbia (BC). Illuminous green kelp grasp the rocks at the ever ebbing shore line (you will later harvest this to eat with dinner) and green untouched pine forests frame the scene. No, you are not gazing into the latest ‘10minute daily meditation’ iPhone app. This is blissful Canadian wilderness. This is Fin Island.

Energetically costly lunge feeding at depth causes the respiratory patterns and feeding performance of rorqual whales (Family Balaenopteridae) to hinge in part upon prey patch depth.

I can say with certainty that anyone who’s encountered a whale here, whether at Whale Point, the Wall, onboard the Elemiah, or otherwise, knows that there is a deeper meaning to the word “whale” than the Oxford English Dictionary’s very dry“a very large marine mammal with a streamlined hairless body, a horizontal tail fin, and a blowhole on top of the head for breathing.”