Vol. 4, No. 3

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Destined to teach

To support herself in her new home, Tobin started teaching at the Westport Village School, a one-room schoolhouse on Brier Island. She had 11 children in her classroom, ranging from grades four to six.

"It was like teaching inside a Norman Rockwell painting," she recalls. "It was magical. We did all the science outdoors; we did everything we could to be outdoors." 

At the same time, Tobin was trying to raise awareness about the plight of the right whale and other marine environment issues. As an outsider, she says, it was far from easy, adding in jest, "I thought at one point I was going to get run over by a truck." 

Harold "Junior" Theriault, whose family has fished the waters of St. Mary's Bay for 13 generations, calls the right whales, "gentle animals, just like kittens. They'll come right up to the boat and smile at you." Nevertheless, his first impressions of Tobin, made him nervous. "When she first came here, I thought she was going to be a hard knot around the Bay of Fundy," he says. "Fishermen don't trust too many and Deborah was seen as a threat. I was certain she was trying to drive everybody out except the whales and the birds."

But over time, says Theriault, the president of the Bay of Fundy's Inshore Fishermen's Association, the community has come to appreciate her determined, yet balanced approach. "She's done nothing but good things for the people here and for the animals," he says, adding that his boat is always on call, if she needs help with a whale rescue.

Tobin, in turn, says the community has shaped her as well, and taught her the value of working hand in hand with fishermen to safeguard the whales. If she has broken through any barriers, she says, it is because of her role as a teacher and her dedication to preserving the community's way of life.

"I have taught the children of fishermen and sat across from them at parent-teacher meetings, listening to their stories, the good and the bad," Tobin, who now sits on the advisory board for the Bay of Fundy Fisheries Council, says. "I don't see the big bad fisherman. We're not on opposite sides of the issue. We're all connected." 

Despite her public persona as an environmentalist, Tobin describes herself as "private." She lives in a house on the Bay of Fundy, and has even spotted a right whale from her front porch. She has nine cats, and a dog. She also takes in stray cats (20 this past summer alone) and supports a spay and neutering program financed by collection cans displayed at local businesses. Rescued animals are later put up for adoption with the help of a local veterinarian.

After living in cities for many years, Tobin calls her life in Freeport, with its beauty, traditions and closeness, "a much richer way to live." She recruits local residents and former students to work at ECE. She is particularly proud of one former student, Simon Seamone, who Tobin taught at Islands Consolidated School on Long Island. Seamone has worked for two summers at ECE and is now at the Marine Institute at Memorial University in Newfoundland studying environmental technology.

"While there aren't a lot of positive things to say about the fate of the whales," she says, "there are milestones like students who grow up learning about the whales and it becomes an important part of their lives."

Tobin, who holds bachelor degrees in history and literature, and education, will return to the classroom this spring to start a master's degree in adult education at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish.

She is keen to tell her students, at all levels, how, unless the accidental deaths of the whales are greatly curtailed, these beautiful animals will vanish. For the future, she plans to expand ECE's whale rescue efforts, and also hold training workshops with the aim of developing a whale rescue team in the Bay of Fundy. After recently coordinating the logistics for such an operation, Tobin is well aware of the challenges she faces, adding, "One entanglement takes weeks of effort and a high level of commitment."

Nevertheless, she appears undaunted. "My talent lies in making things happen," she says.