Henri Otis
I first met Henri Otis in 1976, on my first trip to the Tadoussac region of the North Shore of the St-Lawrence, to see and hopefully film and record the whales that lived in the area or migrated through there during the summer months, on their way south to the winter calving areas. In truth, we didn’t know what to expect and even less what we were doing, never having undertaken an expedition of this nature before. When I asked around, I was given Mr. Otis’ name, but, as is usual in these matters, it still took several days before we actually met face to face for the first time.
Initially, Mr. Otis approached us as he would any other groups of tourists wanting to see the whales up close. He had a routine that he followed. In the morning, if the weather was amenable, and if he wasn’t otherwise occupied, Mr. Otis would let us know and we would pay him a pre-arranged guide fee before he fueled up his boat and we set out in search of the whales for the day.
Based on past experience, Henri knew the favourite feeding grounds of the various species in the St-Lawrence, and was able, with surprising consistency, to bring us near them to record and film. Still the river is 10 km wide at this point and we often came back to shore in the late afternoon having little to show for our efforts, seeing the whales in the distance but never getting more than 1 km away from them.
In this part of the Gulf, the weather is a significant and often unpredictable factor and we came to know and appreciate that Henri was very good at anticipating weather patterns. We might awake to a sunny and calm morning and prepare to set out into the Gulf and Henri would inform us that this was not a good day for going out. A few hours later, his prediction would be confirmed by a storm front and heavy rain.
I began having talks with Henri on the long boat rides out to see the whales and on our way back to shore, which often lasted 2 or more hours. He began to tell me stories about his life and his world; I was all to eager to listen to his tales, never really knowing where fact and exaggeration overlapped. Later that summer (1976), and on the 3 subsequent trips (the next 2 summers 1977-1978) and in the wintertime (1977) that I undertook with various partners to continue our study, Henri agreed to record some of his stories for the future and here are a sampling of three of them, unfortunately not captured under the best of technical conditions.
