The Wild Canadian Year

Winter weather creates severe conditions across the country, including one of Canada’s most remote and far-flung islands — a crescent-shaped sliver of land 300 kilometres off the coast of Nova Scotia: Sable Island. Here 400,000 grey seals have come ashore to give birth and mate. The tiny seal pups are born into a world of howling, gale-force winds, blowing sand, and blizzards. Living alongside them are the remarkable wild horses of Sable Island.

Fall is a time of great migrations — three-quarters of all of Canada’s bird species fly south. On the vast tidal flats of the world-famous Bay of Fundy, massive flocks of semipalmated sandpipers feast and gather strength for their epic journey south. The world’s biggest tides provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for the hungry travellers, but as the waters rise, the resting hordes become targets for swift and powerful hunters: peregrine falcons. The sandpipers rise up in swirling, ever-shifting giant flocks that confuse the falcons. But the falcons have a hunting strategy that rarely fails.

The journey begins in the offshore waters off the Pacific Coast of Canada, where four thousand Steller sea lion pups have just been born on a remote island. The boisterous sea lion pups are facing the danger of swimming in rough seas – but an even greater threat is lurking in the water — killer whales. An incredible hunt unfolds when a family of killer whales launches a stealth attack on the sea lions.

In northern Quebec, the female caribou of the Leaf River herd are on epic 600-kilometre migration to reach their calving grounds. They are racing against the clock to complete their journey before the spring melt begins. Along the way, they must face off against an ancient adversary that hounds them their entire lives – wolves.