Suddenly, an outboard motor breaks the calm. Half a dozen boats ride into the wide estuary... each with a driver at the stern, a black rubber-clad figure at the bow, rope in hand. These are the beluga cowboys... a group of native Canadians who hire themselves out to aquariums across North America and beyond. Providing whales, for sale.

In this case, the client is the Vancouver aquarium. The order...three belugas.

The lead boat zeros in on a couple of whales at the edge of theherd. These two dive deep, disappearing to the safety of the riverbed. The search continues. The light grey back of a young beluga surfaces briefly... long enough to catch the attention of the cowboys. They trail it, riding parallel to a spit of sand they know lies just on the other side of the whale.

They inch their way closer and closer to the beluga, urging it into shallower and shallower water. Soon it is too shallow for the whale. The boats circle. The cowboys get loops of the thick - but relatively soft - rope ready.

One cowboy in his black wetsuit jumps... then another. The water is cold, clear and chest deep. The whale twists and turns and tries to keep moving. But with sand below and a man riding bareback, escape is difficult.

Four more cowboys arrive. One holds the fin. Another, the tail. With surprising gentleness, they slip the rope around the front of the whale. The whale can still move a little... but the splashing subsides. The struggle is over.

Another, larger boat arrives. In it, a stretcher fit for a whale. The cowboys slip that underneath... lifting the 400-kilogram beluga out of its world, into their own. The large grey eyes watch... the beast barely moves.

With cameras, reporters, and an official of the Canadian government in tow, the cowboys pull their bounty to shore. To a "holding tank" - really not much bigger than a small above-ground pool - sitting behind a nondescript building on the shore. The aptly named "Beluga Motel". Home to the whale cowboys as they prepare to go out again the following day to fill the rest of their order.

A few days later... after all three belugas have been declared healthy, they board a transport truck... then a cargo plane. Going faster... higher... and farther than they were designed to. On their way to a freshly-built, carefully-designed tank that bearslittle resemblance to the waters off Churchill.

wo summers later, the same beluga cowboys were hired again... by the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Once again, they rode out... this time, delivering four whales. They did it with the blessing of the Canadian government, with a vet's seal of approval... and withtragic consequences. Two of the four whales died shortly after arriving in the US, before they could even be put on display.

That capture brought to 64 the number of belugas caught in Canada since the government started allowing the practice 30 years ago... whales which were shipped to the US, Japan, and Germany.

After the deaths, though, Ottawa had second thoughts. It soon made it illegal to export belugas abroad. And the capture for domestic aquariums turned out to be complicated and controversial enough that - for now at least - no one is paying the beluga cowboys to ride that river.