The story of a save-the-whales group headquartered in landlocked Edmonton in the 1980s shows that a small group of passionate people can make a difference, says the sister of one of the organization's founding members.
"I'm just really pleased that she and the Whale Society that she loved so much get this moment in the sun, as it were," Candas Jane Dorsey said of her late sister Jaclyn at a live recording of the Let's Find Out podcast on March 3.
Dorsey, an activist and author in her own right, donated boxes of papers to the City of Edmonton Archives, including Jaclyn's files from her days as secretary of the Whale Society of Edmonton. That's where they caught the eye of Let's Find Out host Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, who ended up incorporating them into a research project and making them part of a trilogy of podcast episodes on the intersection of media and environmental groups in 20th-century Alberta.
The Whale Society of Edmonton was active from 1979 to 1984, running public awareness campaigns and sending educational material to students in Alberta. The group, which numbered about 200 members but ran on a core of less than a dozen, also encouraged Canadians to send letters to their political representatives to urge them to support a global moratorium against whale hunting.
They also published articles on the importance of protecting these rare and threatened mammals. Jaclyn, who died in 1997 at the age of 54, was particularly enamoured with minke whales, even though she'd only seen one once on a trip.
"Someone has to care about the thing you only glimpse," Dorsey said.
(from left) Chris Chang-Yen Phillips interviews archivist Kathryn Ivany and writer Candas Jane Dorsey at a live recording of the Let's Find Out podcast on March 3, 2026. (Stephanie Swensrude)
In the 1970s and '80s, a letter-writing campaign to influence government "used to work," Dorsey said. "I think that's part of why the Whale Society could expect, 'We're going to send a brief to these people, and they're going to read it, and they might even do something.'"
The powers-that-be don't necessarily listen as well these days, but the lesson is persistence, Dorsey said. Local action can ripple outward, even if change arrives in steps rather than sweeping wins.
The archives are full of evidence of Edmontonians trying to make those ripples, said city archivist Kathryn Ivany. "I think there's always something that we will find that will grab our hearts and grab our time and effort," Ivany said.
Dorsey said she's impressed with the students she teaches at MacEwan University in the communications department. "There was a period where there was kind of a cynical generation that didn't do activism, but the students I have right now are so deeply committed to a better world and a better landscape," she said.
Hear much more about the Whale Society of Edmonton, plus a brief history of the city's arts media ecosystem, and learn how to donate meaningful materials to the city archives on Episode 71 of Let's Find Out.
Disclosure: You can also see pictures from the live show in Let's Find Out's recap, including a couple of your correspondent, who won a prize in the whale-song contest.