White-Whale Hunters of Anse-Aux-Basques

Did Cartier dream of making a country from this land of a million birds? In his records of his exploration he certainly marvelled at seeing the great auks that have since disappeared from Isle aux Ouaiseaulx, the razor-bills and gannets that are gone from Blanc-Sablon, and the kittiwakes from Anticosti, all the winged creatures of all the islands which he described as being "as full of birds as a meadow is of grass". And that's not even counting the countless snow geese.

Savent-ils, les frères Otis, de l'Anse-aux-Basques, chasseurs de loups marins et de marsouins, qu'ils sont les derniers descendants des chasseurs basques du XVIe siècle?

From the lower St. Lawrence, a picture of whale hunting that looks more like a round-up, with a corral, whale-boys and all. In 1534, when he stopped at the island he named l'Île-aux-Coudres, Jacques Cartier saw how the Indigenous People captured the little white beluga whales by setting a fence of saplings into off-shore mud. In the film, the islanders show that the old method still works, thanks to the trusting "sea-pigs," the same old tide, and a little magic.