Since 2001, the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center annually supports an archaeological team, under the direction of Dr. Bill Fitzhugh, to the Lower North Shore (LNS) of Québec (www.mnh.si.edu/arctic). 

The LNS is that eastern promontory of the Province of Québec sandwiched between the northern waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the southern boundary of Labrador. To begin our annual venture, which is by boat on the Pitsiulak (from the Inuit language meaning “black guillemot”), skippered by Perry Colbourne, we navigate from Newfoundland’s Notre Dame Bay to the northern tip of Newfoundland where we cross west to Labrador and then south down to the LNS. 

With much time at sea, we are able to view a wide variety of birds and marine life. The northern gannet / Morus bassanus is one of the many species which cruise the sea seeking schools of fish.  During each trip we usually are fortunate enough to spot schools of white-beaked dolphins / Lagenorhynchus albirostris. 

They will often ride our bow wave at better than 10 mph – as this one has just done – and swim along, in our equivalent of a side stoke, while looking up at us eye-to-eye.  It is an atavistic feeling, retrieved from our long-forgotten past, to be in such close contact with other species of wildlife at sea.