Into the Wild: Swimming with Beluga Whales in Churchill, MB

Floating in the face-stingingly cold 4C water, frigid seawater trickling down the neck of my wetsuits, I feel a jolt of electricity when our gazes meet. A pod of beluga whales surrounds me. One by one, they turn their heads and gaze over, their chirps filling my ears, their ghostly white bodies cutting swathes through the green saltwater of Hudson Bay.