Whales, tales and trails: Can dead whales be as much of a tourism draw as live ones?

No matter how many times you've seen a whale breach, it never gets old.

Whale-watching brings thousands of tourists to Newfoundland and Labrador each year. Living whales are, of course, the biggest draw, but do tourists have an interest in dead whales too?

That was the question posed by David Hayashida many years ago in his community of King's Point in Green Bay — a question at the heart of the latest episode of CBC's Land and Sea.

He had an idea to create whale pavilions in various towns in the region, showcasing skeletons of whales found in waters off this coast.

"So we did a travelling roadshow going from community to community to community saying, 'We've got a crazy idea, it could work. What do you think?'"

Many towns in Green Bay and White Bay liked the concept of a kind of whale trail around the region.

And, at that time, there was federal funding for the venture.

Once towns were on board with the concept, the challenge was finding the feature attraction: dead whales.

Hayashida says they were lucky to have someone very knowledgeable in their corner.

That was Jon Lien, PhD, still known affectionately as the whale man.

Lien was an animal behaviourist who dedicated much of his life to releasing whales and dolphins from entanglements.

He was always eager to help others understand the underwater world.

"So with Jon there, we had the right of first refusal to any whale that was washing up on the beaches. If the Royal Ontario Museum [or] some other big museum wanted a whale, they had to go through Jon, and Jon was giving us the first opportunity. So that was an incredible situation," said Hayashida.

A humpback whale that washed up in Cobb's Arm was assigned to the community of King's Point, and a sperm whale that washed up in the Codroy Valley was assigned to the town of Triton.