Researcher spots beached whale in N.L. from space… and his home in Belgium

A Belgium researcher besotted with Newfoundland and Labrador recently came across an image snapped from space that shows a beached whale in a rural area. After sharing it online, he's been blown away by the response.

Yannis Cleymans, who lives outside the Belgian city of Leuven, is an avid follower of the province and has been writing Wikipedia entries related to the topic for the past six years.

While looking for something new to write about, he came across a satellite image on Google Maps of Clay Cove, located in White Bay off the Baie Verte Peninsula.

"I saw something weird and the first thing that pops into my mind is that it's like an abandoned fishing stage or something, because of all the resettled communities out there," Cleymans told CBC Radio's The Broadcast.

"But when I zoomed in, it turned out to be a whale beached on the shore."

After years of looking at satellite images, Cleymans said, it was the first time he's spotted a beached whale. He believes it was a sperm whale and was more than 15 metres in length.

"I thought it was so intriguing that I wanted to share it with people in Newfoundland. So, I went to Facebook and I found a beachcombing page."

After being shared on the Beachcombers of Newfoundland and Labrador page, Cleymans said, it quickly grabbed the attention of the members.

"I think it's pretty great," he said.

After some digging, he found out that the satellite image was from 2022 and people who live in the area commented with their own stories about the whale.

"I'm quite surprised that there are so many hundreds of people following this story," said Cleymans.

A fascination with N.L.

Cleymans is a historian by trade and works for his government. He said he has been interested in Newfoundland and Labrador "for quite some years."

"So I researched about it in my spare time as a hobby, you could say," said Cleymans.

After he finished university, he wanted to keep the hobby alive and turned to writing Wikipedia entries about the province.

He said he ended up choosing Newfoundland and Labrador as a subject because as a child he lived in the U.S. and loved geography. Maps show that Newfoundland is the closest part of North America to Europe, he said.

"So when I lived there as a little kid, it was always, for me, like a bit of a connection to home. And I always kept my interest in Newfoundland because of that reason, basically," he said.

Cleymans said he can't easily visit the Clay Cove site to see where the whale died, but he's hoping people will share images to see if anything is left.

Last year, he visited Newfoundland for a road trip with his father, even snapping a photo of himself standing on Castle Hill National Historic Site in Placentia with his hand on the cannon. The pair also visited Gros Morne National Park.

"So we visited, like, the big highlights," he said.

Cleymans said he's thinking about a return trip in the next few years to explore the northern and western parts of the province.

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