Expedition 🇨🇦 Canada
Narwhal in Canada
The unicorn of the sea — an Arctic whale whose spiralled tusk is actually a tooth that can grow three metres long.
The species
The narwhal is one of the Arctic's most mysterious cetaceans — a mottled grey whale with a long spiralled tusk erupting from the upper lip of most males. The tusk is an elongated left canine tooth, packed with nerve endings, possibly used for sensing or communication.
Habitat in Canada
Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia hold narwhals. They migrate seasonally between offshore winter ice and summering grounds in bays and fjords of the Canadian High Arctic and Baffin Bay.
Where to spot one
Churchill, Manitoba
Hudson Bay Coast
The polar bear capital of the world — bears gather on the tundra each autumn waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze.
Banff & Jasper National Parks
Alberta
Rocky Mountain wilderness — elk, bighorn sheep, grizzly bears, and turquoise lakes beneath glacier peaks.
Algonquin Provincial Park
Ontario
Classic Canadian Shield country — moose in misty lakes at dawn, loons on the water, wolves howling at night.
Great Bear Rainforest
British Columbia
Temperate rainforest coast — grizzlies fishing salmon, humpback whales offshore, and the rare white spirit bear.
Conservation status
Narwhals are Near Threatened, vulnerable to climate change reducing sea ice, noise from shipping, and hunting in Greenland. Canadian Arctic populations remain the best studied.
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