Aboriginal whale watching

[Extract] There are several aboriginal-owned whale-watching ventures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These include viewing orca (killer whale) with Village Island Tours (Telegraph Cove, BC), operated since 1989 by Tom Sewid, a Kwakwak'awakw First Nations man. His boat, painted with a First Nations Orca design, is named Gla-Lis (finning whale). The Kwakwak'awakw people believe that chiefs are reborn as killer whales. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, other First Nation groups operate boat tours viewing orca and grey whales. In Quebec, eastern Canada, the Essipit-Montagnais First Nation have run whale-watching boat tours on the St Lawrence River estuary since 1994; they use zodiac boats to view common and blue finback whales. The company employs six full-time staff and purchased a new whale watch vessel in 1999 with funds from Aboriginal Business Canada. Whale watching provides 60% of their income. In Nunavut, an Inuit territory in Arctic Canada, some Inuit people run kayak trips at Kugaarak (Pelly Bay) and Pond Inlet to watch narwhals, beluga whales and bowhead whales (all still hunted by the Inuit).