There's only one truly white whale.
Like a ghost.
And just as mysterious.
Beluga whales smile...
show emotion with facial expressions.
They have one of the largest vocabularies in the ocean.
And may even give themselves names.
Now we join them... like never before.
As this family begins an adventure...
that follows an ancient road map.
A dangerous journey...
safety lies in numbers...
and traditions only survive
if the young listen to their elders...
and learn their secrets.
Belugas are some of the most social animals on the planet.
They are toothed whales,
like dolphins...
and their arctic cousins, narwhals.
Belugas are the only whales that can turn their heads like we can.
-They have their own language... -(WHALES WHISTLING)
...deep family bonds...
...and age-old traditions.
These belugas have promises to keep.
But some of those promises put them in danger.
This beluga family begins a journey to a reunion it can't miss.
It's an annual pilgrimage from Greenland to the Canadian Arctic.
Ahead lies nearly a thousand miles of unforgiving ocean.
The oldest sister has a baby of her own.
It's best they all stay together.
The spring thaw opens ancient pathways.
But belugas breathe air like we do. If the ice closes above them,
they will drown.
So the beluga stay in close touch as they work through the maze.
Adults may be 13 to 20 feet long...
but they can still disappear.
They use special calls to keep tabs on everyone in the murk...
maybe even individual names.
The baby shares its mother's call.
After a few hundred miles, they reach open water.
But here, they face an even greater danger.
Orcas hunt beluga whales...
and orcas can hear them talk.
It calls for new tactics.
The belugas teach their young
that here, they need to take small, quiet breaths.
No chatter...
just touch.
Finally, after six weeks of swimming the gauntlet,
they arrive at a special, secret location.
Cunningham Inlet in Northern Canada.
Their own private oasis.
Where a warmer freshwater river
pours into the sea.
This is like a family trip to the spa.
The gravel bottom acts as a big loofah...
for an itch they've been waiting all year to scratch.
The beluga's skin is a hundred times thicker than ours,
but in their winter home, the water is too cold for it to grow.
In these warmer waters, family members can shed a layer,
and get rid of annoying parasites.
This is one of the highlights of their year.
But it's not why they're here.
The main attraction is about to begin.
Another group arrives. Males and females.
Then another.
Soon... there are hundreds.
Then...
more than two thousand belugas.
Families, all fulfilling their promise to be here for a grand reunion.
Time for everyone to get reacquainted.
They mingle with old friends.
And meet new additions to the family.
But this year's event has a party crasher.
National Geographic explorer and world-famous whale photographer,
Brian Skerry has come to the middle of nowhere to join the festivities.
He's known of this place for years, but never dreamed the gathering
would be such a celebration.
BRIAN: I've never seen anything quite like this.
And we're not talking about one or two whales...
we're talking about dozens...
hundreds, even thousands.
It is absolutely off the scale.
What they do here is unique.
They're spinning around, they're doing spy hops.
They're doing this behavior that's often called "The banana,"
where you'll see their head and their tail out there,
rubbing their bellies on the bottom on the gravel.
It must feel great!
And there may be more going on here than a summer vacation.
BRIAN: There's so much beluga behavior.
A giant beluga party.
And that's what it seems like but I know that
there must be more happening.
That's really what I'm trying to find out.
These whales traveled nearly a thousand miles from Greenland
to get here.
Now, the youngest sister reveals the real reason for their journey.
BRIAN: And there it is.
A baby beluga.
She's come to Cunningham Inlet to give birth.
BRIAN: Not only does she have her baby but as I look around,
there are so many moms and babies.
Belugas weigh more than 120 pounds at birth,
and there are clues that many young here are just hours old.
BRIAN: We now have photographic evidence of calves being born in this place...
that were probably born hours before with fetal folds,
with umbilical cords.
BRIAN: It's a giant beluga whale nursery. Unbelievable.
This is the birthplace of countless generations of belugas.
Everyone in this family was raised right here.
After 15 months of carrying a baby, this is a mother's perfect nursery.
BRIAN: For a mom to be able to come to a place that is very protected,
that's very shallow, where the water might be several degrees
warmer than the open ocean...
and she can nurse that calf in those first few precious days,
to put on that layer of insulation,
to survive in that freezing cold Arctic Ocean.
This baby puts on a pound a day.
At the same time, mom stimulates her infant's brain.
Lessons in language start on day one with beluga baby talk.
Mom uses a special call to stay in touch.
Daughter needs to learn it by heart.
As she gets older,
their conversations will grow much deeper.
Mom will teach her hundreds of sounds.
When the daughter is three, she will decide to stay with mom,
or head out on her own.
No matter where she ends up, every year, she will keep her promise,
and return to Cunningham Inlet.
It's not instinct but something she was taught.
This is culture.
Other beluga clans have different rituals,
and different birthplaces to return to.
One hometown, a thousand miles south,
challenges belugas in incredible ways.
Canada's Hudson Bay,
five times larger than all of the Great Lakes combined.
This mom and son must navigate the Hudson's many dangers.
Tides swell more than 25 feet in a matter of hours.
Always changing...
countless hazards...
...shallows and sandbars.
And it's rush hour.
More than a third of the world's belugas summer here...
as many as 55,000 animals.
Mom's young boy doesn't want to get lost.
They finally arrive at their traditional family home, Seal River.
-(THUNDER RUMBLES) - But their joy is short-lived.
Polar bears swarm Seal River.
With winter's ice gone, they have two choices. Go hungry...
or get creative.
This big male finds the perfect perch...
...right in the belugas' path.
Mom uses sonar to locate threats in the murk.
But, out of the water, the bear is invisible.
All he has to do, is wait.
Mom knows that splash.
It means move, and fast.
Bears can only swim six miles an hour.
Belugas, almost twenty.
They sound the alarm to others...
...with loud jaw claps.
But they're not out of danger yet.
Another frightened beluga joins them as they race over a sandbar.
The tide drops too fast.
The youngster makes it across...
but the mom and the other adult beluga are stuck.
In the commotion, the young male is separated.
Without mom's milk and her protection,
this baby doesn't stand a chance out here alone.
She can hear his cries from a third of a mile away.
Underwater, human ears can't tell where sounds comes from.
But belugas channel sound through their jaws.
This mother, quite literally,
feels her babies cries.
And she can do nothing about it.
Or... can she?
Finally, mom is free.
The slightly larger beluga with her is not.
Mom immediately retraces her steps...
...listening for her son's calls.
But they've stopped.
Every mother fears the unthinkable.
She cries out for him.
Mom can only hope he recognizes her call.
-(UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYING) - There he is.
Her son remembered what he was taught.
Their shared call has saved his life.
This is a very lucky young whale.
The beluga left stranded is not.
Now, a sacrifice so this bear can survive.
A hard introduction to Seal River.
But a valuable lesson for the young son.
By the time he leaves his mom around the age of three,
this place will be deeply imprinted in his memory.
He'll know most of this shore's secrets...
and its creatures.
Including other whales.
Nearby...
far stranger...
and more elusive.
This frozen Arctic Inlet in Canada's Lancaster Sound
holds a secret.
Life is everywhere below.
Even the ice itself is alive...
with ice-burrowing crustaceans called amphipods.
This is home for one of the world's rarest whales...
the narwhal.
We know narwhals cross paths with belugas
and share feeding grounds.
They both eat fifty to sixty pounds of seafood a day...
but narwhals dive deeper,
more than a mile down, to hunt bottom-dwelling fish.
And the most obvious difference...
that giant tusk.
The narwhals' legendary horn is actually a long sensitive tooth.
Some females and all the males grow them.
It's one of only two teeth they have.
And exactly how it's used has been a mystery...
until now.
A big narwhal tusk means a fertile mate.
But this male reveals there's more to it than virility.
He has fish in his sights.
A quick flick of the tusk stuns the prey.
No one knows how often they hunt like this.
It only adds to their mystery.
And seeing how a baby eats has been just as elusive.
Babies can't yet eat solid food, so this mom provides all the calories
for her daughter's first 20 months.
This is the first time narwhal nursing has been captured on film.
National Geographic whale photographer Brian Skerry
tracks them,
and sees a familiar intimacy.
BRIAN: They love and nurture each other,
and it's this bond that helps them survive difficult situations.
In a lot of ways, they're just like belugas.
And a lot like us.
Also like belugas, narwhals make a journey...
as they have for thousands of years.
Every spring, this group migrates eight hundred miles
from Canada's Baffin Bay to more shallow, warmer waters in the west.
And in at least one case, that's where these two whale species may merge
in the most peculiar way.
It begins with this young wayward narwhal.
He split off from his pod.
And now, he's lost.
He travels alone for weeks.
Wrong turn after wrong turn brings him to a strange waters.
There are no other narwhals here.
The closest one is now 600 miles away.
He has no idea where to hunt in this area, or how.
But he is not totally alone.
A group of male beluga whales approaches.
They are the world's southern-most belugas.
His closest cousins could be his saviors.
Narwhals and belugas
make up their own branch of the whale family tree...
but they don't usually interact.
These white whales may make an exception.
He's likely the first narwhal they've ever seen.
This family's ancestors remained here near Quebec
after the last ice age, 10,000 years ago.
They don't look like this narwhal, or speak his language,
but it's possible the belugas can understand their alien cousin.
At least the basics.
He's alone, he's scared...
and he's some kind of whale.
They aren't the only ones taking notes.
Robert Michaud has studied the beluga whales of the Saint Lawrence
for more than 35 years.
But he's never seen anything quite like this.
ROBERT: The very first time we saw the narwhal, we just wondered,
"Whoa, what kind of weird beluga have we seen?"
A lost narwhal is not in a good position.
If the belugas don't adopt him, he won't learn how to hunt here.
He's sure to die alone in strange waters.
As winter descends, the narwhal is still with them.
But there's an unseen enemy here.
Sound.
The Saint Lawrence is one of Canada's busiest waterways.
Boat noise here makes it hard for whales to communicate...
and to hunt with their sonar.
The narwhal will have to adapt to the noise
and be fully accepted by the belugas.
If the belugas keep the narwhal in their group,
-...it will be the very first time... -(WHALES WHISTLING)
...this type of long-term cross-species adoption has ever been recorded.
Spring, and the fate of the whales is unknown.
Robert Michaud is back to find out.
If the narwhal is alive, it will mean he spent the winter with the belugas...
and has been accepted into their group.
ROBERT: We just received a call from our colleague.
They just heard of about 75 beluga whales.
Even if he survived,
finding a single whale in the world's largest estuary is a monumental task.
We know exactly what we're looking for if we see it.
Narval!
ROBERT: Narwhal! Yes!
Whoo!
The narwhal is alive.
And he's with young beluga males just like last summer...
embraced as one of the gang.
ROBERT: Today gives us a few cues to understand this very special behavior,
this very special presence.
This narwhal being included in a new society.
This benevolent cross-cultural acceptance
points to how many secrets these whales have,
and how much we can learn from them.
Throughout the world, other whale species also form societies.
And stay true to their family traditions.
Their cultures keep them going.
Through the good...
and the bad.
And it's the secrets they share that help them prevail.
Our amazing National Geographic team goes out with the goal
of trying to find these social, emotional interactions
amongst these animals,
the different species that we studied in this series.
All right, David, you found them.
JAMES: And here at this inlet, at this gathering, we saw that joyfulness.
That mingling, that desire to be together, that communication.
JAMES: It's amazing, the complexity of the language of the beluga.
It's even possible that they're giving themselves names.
There are recognizable linguistic structures
that seem to be associated with individuals.
JAMES: And some of these animals are traveling 900 miles
to be at this big party, get-together, reunion,
whatever you want to call it.
And, of course, it's a birthing ceremony as well.
That's just spectacular. I didn't expect to see that.
No, me neither. 15 point...
JAMES: What's really interesting about this is that individuals from one group
will wander off with another group, and they'll communicate
for a period of time. So, what are they doing?
They're catching up. They've got a lot of gossip.
They haven't seen each other for a year.
"You know what happened to so and so? Well, let me tell you."
So, you're seeing what we would recognize as human social behavior.
It doesn't seem to be strategic in any way, in terms of hunting strategy.
It seems to be just purely social.
They don't know instinctively to come back to where they were born,
they choose to come back to where they were born
and mingle there and exchange information. That's pretty fascinating.
-(WATER BUBBLING) -(WHALES SINGING)