A family of four sits at a table looking at whale photos and books. They appear engaged and happy, with whale models and binoculars on the table, suggesting an interest in marine life.

A family with a special connection to the water

by Globe Content Studio

This article is part of a series about the people who make Newfoundland and Labrador an unforgettable place to visit. Warm, welcoming, and fun-loving to the core, they create experiences that stay with you long after you’ve left. Say hello to some of the folks who’ll make you feel at home – no matter where you’re from.

Kris Prince, owner and operator of Sea of Whales Adventures in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, says he is probably more comfortable on water than on land. Growing up on the Bonavista peninsula, he spent his childhood on fishing boats with his uncles.
“When I finished high school, I knew I wanted to be on the water,” he says. “My grandmother told me some wise words: ‘Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ And for me, that’s to be on the water.”
Kris met his wife, Shawna, who is originally from Nova Scotia, when they were both working with a whale watching company in Trinity. A few years later, they decided to start a company of their own, but spent the winter months across the country in Alberta.

“We both kept our day jobs when we first started our company,” Shawna says. “I was teaching full time, and Kris was welding. We were both travelling back and forth between Alberta and here.” During the pandemic, they decided to try a winter in Trinity Bay. “After that year, we sold everything we had in Alberta, and that was it!”
Newfoundland and Labrador is renowned for whale watching, a thrilling experience that’s considered one of the province’s must-do attractions. In fact, Newfoundland and Labrador is known as the humpback whale capital of the world because of the large population of feeding humpback whales that frequent its waters each year.

When guests book an excursion with Sea of Whales Adventures, they can expect much more than a typical whale-watching tour. Custom-made Zodiac boats carry a maximum of 12 people plus two crew members, creating an intimate, informative, immersive experience. Visitors get up close and personal with the majestic mammals who swim beneath them and spout next to them.
Kris and Shawna say that between the whales and the guests, there’s no shortage of special moments on the water.
“We had a blue whale birthday [party] for a 90-year-old in one of our boats recently,” says Kris with a smile.
“And we had an engagement,” Shawna adds, referencing a private charter that included a proposal. “She said yes, thankfully!”
Sometimes, if younger guests are a bit nervous getting on the boat, the couple’s young children jump on board to ease their minds. The Prince kids have spent their whole lives on the water – helping their parents, meeting people from all over the world, and absorbing marine knowledge.
Kris and Shawna are so well-known in the area that they get return guests of both human and marine varieties. Kris says they’ve encountered familiar whales on most of their whale-watching excursions, recognizing them by the markings on their tails and dorsal fins.

A family of four, two adults and two children, gather around a wooden table, smiling and laughing together in a cozy kitchen with blue walls and framed artwork in the background.

The Prince family samples a “bergy bit” of iceberg retrieved from the ocean. Photo by Johnny CY Lam

The couple’s eyes light up when they mention whale friends Hookie and Angie, who have returned year after year. Kris and Shawna record and share that information with whale researchers in the Azores, Turks and Caicos, Bermuda and the Dominican Republic, who track migration patterns and population health.
“Our partners who we work with in the Caribbean typically don’t see [the whale’s] tails – only the dorsal fins [because] the whale doesn’t bring her tail all the way out in the shallower water,” Kris says. He takes photos to help their partners see what the tails look like so that they can more accurately track which whales have been successful during their long and dangerous migration.
“It’s a really big cause for celebration when we know our friends to the south are following the moms with their new babies, and we see them here with their babies, safe and well,” says Shawna. She’s done some consulting work with researchers who have come to the area to help them find the animals they want to tag or biopsy.

“It’s really important to us to contribute and give back. We are on the water more than any of them can afford to be, so we’re out there collecting data for them as well as educating people [about what we’re doing],” she says.
The raw proximity to nature during tours is something that many urban dwellers don’t often get to experience, says Shawna, who has been moved by some of their guests’ reactions.

A humpback whale’s tail, or fluke, is visible above the blue ocean surface as it dives, with distant land and clear sky in the background.

The Prince family’s whale friend Hookie. Photo by Kris Prince

“I had a woman from Toronto tell me once that, ‘Your air has texture.’ It was when the fog had lifted, and the air was really heavy and damp,” she says. “I remember speaking to a return visitor from the UK, who always says, ‘I feel different here.’ I asked, ‘Do you feel more like yourself when you’re here or when you’re home?’ And he said, ‘I feel like me when I’m here.’”
Though a ride in a Zodiac on the Atlantic Ocean is an exhilarating adventure, to say the least, when you’re with the Princes (and their extended whale family), you’re at home.