The St. Lawrence at Tadoussac is roughly 350 metres deep, and it is that trench, not the shoreline, that draws the whales. Where the Saguenay Fjord meets the estuary, a submarine sill forces cold, nutrient-heavy water upward. Krill and capelin gather in the resulting upwelling. Fin whales, minkes, humpbacks and the resident beluga population follow the food. Thirteen cetacean species have been recorded in these waters. Tadoussac itself is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement north of Mexico, founded as a fur-trading post in 1600 by Pierre de Chauvin. The Chapelle des Indiens, raised in 1747, remains the oldest surviving wooden church in North America. For three centuries the village lived on pelts, timber and steamships. Whale watching arrived only in the 1970s, and it changed the economy entirely. Tadoussac whale watching tours zodiac departures now leave from the quay below the village, minutes from the ferry crossing at the fjord mouth. The Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park, established in 1998, governs what happens on that water. It was Canada's first park created to protect a marine environment alone, covering 1,245 square kilometres. Approach distances are legally fixed. Belugas, listed as endangered, may not be approached at all — boats must withdraw if the animals come near. Vessel numbers around a single whale are capped. These rules shape every croisière aux baleines that leaves the harbour, and the operators enforce them. The zodiac is the reason the format persists. A rigid-hull inflatable sits low, carries few passengers, and turns inside its own length. Eye level is barely a metre above the surface, so a fin whale's blow arrives as sound and spray rather than as distant silhouette. Passengers wear supplied flotation suits against water that hovers near 2°C even in August. The larger vessels in the fleet — the VIP lounge cruise, the three-hour Charlevoix crossing, the fjord combination sailing — trade that proximity for shelter and height. The interpretive tradition here is unusually rigorous. Naturalists trained through the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals, based in the village since 1985, identify individual whales by dorsal notch and fluke pattern. Some animals have been catalogued for forty years. A Tadoussac zodiac whale watching tour is, in practice, a field survey with paying observers aboard. Season runs from May through October, peaking in late summer. Departures for tadoussac whale watching tours zodiac operate from 177, rue des Pionniers, with check-in one hour before sailing.