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Tourists from around the world are arriving on the windswept Îles de la Madeleine to witness a unique Canadian winter event: the birth of thousands of harp seal pups on the ice floes of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

For more than 25 years, eco-tour operators have taken advantage of the international fascination with the limpid-eyed pups, which have become the poster babies for animal-rights organizations everywhere.

During the first two weeks in March, tourists are ferried to the floes by helicopters from the Îles de la Madeleine to experience a place that is almost otherworldly.

Sea ice stretches out toward the horizon in a frigid landscape dotted with thousands of bleating seals, many of them nursing tiny newborns with coats as white as snow.

While the mothers are skittish and will usually slip into the water through holes in the ice when tourists approach, it is possible to get quite close to the pups. However, visitors are advised not to touch the whitecoats.

"It is truly one of the wonders of the world," says David Lavigne, science adviser for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which created the first tours to the seal nursery in the 1970s.

"When you see hundreds of thousands of seals stretched out on the ice before you, it is a remarkable scene and it's one that many tourists really enjoy."

The IFAW started the tours as an economic alternative to the annual seal hunt but has not been part of the tour business for years, not since professional operators took over.

The industry got a boost in 2006 when former Beatle Paul McCartney and his now-estranged wife, Heather Mills, visited the gulf nursery. While they were making a statement about putting an end to the annual hunt, they rolled around on the ice and

cavorted with the pups.

A large hotel on the Gulf islands, Château Madelinot, caters to the international eco-crowd, providing comfortable accommodations, an indoor pool and many activities on the scenic, 65-kilometre-long archipelago, which is part of Quebec.

"We expect over 250 people this year," hotel sales manager Emile Richard says of the seal-watching tours, which add more than $1-million a year to the local economy.

"We had quite a few Japanese visitors last year as well as Europeans from such countries as France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany. There are Americans as well, and always a few Canadians."

Richard says there are basically two types of seal tourists: animal lovers and professional photographers.

Packages at Château Madelinot, beginning with a three-night stay for $1,100, include helicopter trips to the floes. Three-hour trips are offered three times a day, depending on weather conditions.

Visitors have to fly there from Montreal or Quebec City.

In the summer, there is a car ferry from Prince Edward Island; Richard says efforts are under way to get a winter ferry service running by next year.

He says the seal-tour business is stable but not growing; it suffers from the vagaries of ice and weather conditions and the high cost of renting the helicopters.

Last year was a poor season because of thin, sparse ice that forced the helicopters almost to the Nova Scotia coast for decent viewing.

However, he says this year could be one of the best in a long time, thanks to a cold winter and heavy ice.

He says the tour business is completely separate from the other annual event that takes place at the seal nursery: the slaughter of thousands of young seals by hunters. The hunt usually takes place in late March and into April, when the seals are about two to three months old. Hunting whitecoats has been banned since 1987. It's estimated there are 5.5 million seals on the East Coast. The hunt, on average, takes about 300,000 a year.

Richard says some tourists have told him that more people would come for the eco-tours if the hunt was stopped. But the seal tours have never made enough money to displace the profitable hunt.

"The fact that the tours are still going on ... indicates that they are sustainable," Lavigne says. "It is an expensive undertaking, but there are many people around the world who like to go to exotic places and see wonderful things, and this is one of those opportunities."

For more information, visit http://www.tourismeilesdelamadeleine.com (click on "joys of winter," then "observation of whitecoats") and http://www.hotelsilesdelamadeleine.com.