Joe And The Whale

For more than 1,000 years, humans have been climbing into tiny boats to slay whales. New Brunswick fisherman Joe Howlett was part of the first generation to do the same thing to help them—and it cost him his life.

- Chelsea Murray

The day Joe Howlett died dawned perfectly. The water in Shippagan Harbour was flat like glass, the winds calm, the sun rising into a dark blue New Brunswick sky as Howlett manoeuvred the Shelagh—the Canadian Whale Institute’s research vessel—into the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a day of surveying North Atlantic right whales. Out on open water, the 59-year-old sailor and fisherman, and any on-board scientists not still in their bunks at that early hour, marvelled at the morning’s golden light.

The weather was a blessing in more ways than one: besides their regular scientific tasks, the crew knew that Howlett, along with Philip Hamilton, the Shelagh’s chief scientist, might attempt a whale rescue. The previous night, they’d received a call from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO): a right whale was tangled up in crab-trap lines near their location. When the fisherman who’d spotted the whale tried to get close, it went wild, thrashing in the water, its huge body criss-crossed with the characteristic deep white scars borne by whales who’ve been entangled in fishing gear. (Up to 85 per cent of the world’s 450 right whales have been snared at least once in their lifetime.)

For more than 1,000 years, humans have been climbing into tiny boats for the chance to slay a whale. Howlett was a member of the first generation to do the same thing to save them. And it wasn’t an unusual request: he was one of the founding members of the Campobello Whale Rescue team, a group of fishermen volunteers who’ve worked since 2002 to free whales caught in fishing line off the coast of Canada’s Maritime provinces. Howlett was one of the world’s foremost disentanglers, a veteran of intimate encounters with trapped, distressed whales weighing up to 70 tonnes.