Newfoundland’s Bloated Whale Can’t Explode Soon Enough

All photos via Darryl Couch.
The island of Newfoundland is well known for many things: the brightly coloured row houses of St. John’s, the majestic icebergs and frolicking whales that tease our shores each Spring, and those amazingly saturated tourism ads that make every corner of this province look like a perfectly lit ethereal scene. All things I affectionately refer to as “Newfie Porn”—but don’t think I’m giving the rest of you a pass to call us Newfies. That’s our word.

Anyhoodle, Newfie Porn is what brings the tourists out in droves, during the two or three months a year the weather’s half decent, to photograph all this rocky island has to offer. And we love every minute of it!  In fact, Newfie Porn is such a thing that ever since the release of this Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism ad entitled Clothesline, I regularly catch people photographing my laundry. Try doing that anywhere else in the world and you’ll likely get arrested for being a pervert. Here in Newfoundland, we offer to hold the camera so you can be in the photo. Not only will Newfoundlanders happily let you gawk at our drawers, but we’ll likely invite you in for a drop of tea afterwards, too. Now that’s sexy. That’s Newfie Porn.

So what is Newfoundland’s latest eye candy attraction? Well, it’s a 26 metre long beached and bloated whale carcass on the rocky shore of Trout River, a tiny community on the island’s West Coast. Now, there are likely a hundred reasons we should all be sad about this, seeing as this day in age one cannot even enjoy eating a hamburger without having to repent and then figure out where it came from, how it was raised, and if the greasy meat will fatally stuff our arteries. That and the fact these whales are numbered and very precious.  But today, I’d like to focus on the positive. The positive being that some experts are predicting this giant whale might soon explode, spewing literal tonnes of oily blubber and foul gunk across a multi-kilometre radius. I know, I know! That’d make a terrible mess and the town may well be doused and left to clean up the mess with no real idea how one should go about cleaning up such a mess. But on the other hand, it is what it is, and it’s going to be friggin’ awesome!

How often does something like this happen? Well, it turns out this kind of thing isn’t totally unheard of, but is fairly rare. And in sticking with the Newfie Porn theme, I’m going to liken this event to finding the G-Spot. It can happen, it has happened, and yet it may never happen again. But if and when it does, it’s absolutely mind blowing and well worth the wait!

See this vintage news reel from 1970 where a town in Oregon attempts to beat the bloated beast to the punch by stuffing it with TNT. The result is pure comedic gold, I tell ya! Gold!

The reason for the possible explosion, you ask? A massive build-up of methane and other gases due to decomposition combined with the ongoing weakening of muscular and epidermal tissue.

So if you’re at all into cultural porn of any kind, be it ‘Newfie’ or otherwise, science and/or watching things explode, join me in Trout River, Newfoundland.

I’ll be the one on the beach in the lawn chair with the haz-mat suit and a half case of India Beer, camera cocked. The sooner, the better b’ys! She’s liable to blow at any time.