Johnstone Strait holds one of the few known rubbing beaches on Earth, where northern resident orcas press their bellies against smooth pebbles in water barely four metres deep. The behaviour has been documented there since the 1970s, and no other population is reliably known to repeat it. The strait itself is narrow, cold and tidal, a corridor between Vancouver Island and the mainland fjords that funnels salmon runs each summer and draws the whales that follow them. Port McNeill grew up beside that corridor. The town began as a logging camp in the 1930s, and for decades its working waterfront served the forest industry rather than visitors. That inheritance still shows in the deep-water moorage along Broughton Blvd, built for barges and now shared with wildlife vessels. The booking office at 1514 Broughton Blvd, Port McNeill, BC V0N 2R0, Canada sits within sight of the ferry ramps that carry traffic to Alert Bay and Sointula. Port McNeill whale watching operates from this compact harbour because the geography is unusually generous: the Broughton Archipelago, Blackfish Sound and Robson Bight lie within a short run, and the fjords narrow the water enough that a fin can be seen from a considerable distance. What makes the region matter today is protection rather than spectacle. The Robson Bight (Michael Bigg) Ecological Reserve was established in 1982 and remains closed to vessels, named for the researcher who developed photo-identification of individual orcas by dorsal fin and saddle patch. That method, now standard worldwide, was refined in these waters. Humpbacks, largely absent for most of the twentieth century after commercial whaling, returned in numbers through the 2000s and are now a routine sighting. Steller sea lions haul out on rock outcrops; bald eagles hold the shoreline snags; Dall's porpoise cross bow waves at speed. A Port McNeill whale watching tour is therefore an exercise in restraint as much as observation. Vessels working the strait follow marine mammal approach distances and hydrophone protocols developed collaboratively by operators and researchers. Access to the office itself is free entry to office/site; tours are paid separately, and the entrance fee is 0 CAD. The comparable inventory on this page reaches south to Campbell River and Vancouver, and further afield to Atlantic waters, but the northern strait remains the reference point. Cedar forest runs down to the tideline. The whales arrive with the fish, as they have for longer than the town has had a name.