Clad in bright orange survival suits, we tumble out of four helicopters and scramble across a patch of floating pack ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in hot pursuit of one of the cutest marine mammal babies on the planet. The yellow-white lumps should be hard to see but they’re squirming so they stand out on the jagged landscape of pure white snow.
Some are emitting gut-wrenching, primal sounds that are a cross between a newborn baby and a mewling kitten. The first one we gather around is with its mom and safely back from the precarious edge where melting sea ice meets frigid ocean water.
The winter gloves come off. The cameras come out. The Canadian seal pup adventure begins.
