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GOLD RIVER, B.C. (CP) - Two-year-old Matea Girotto thinks all whales are called Luna.

She sees a whale on television or a picture of a whale in a book and she'll immediately yell 'Luna," her father Alberto said Monday. Luna, the lonely whale who died Friday after a tragic encounter with a tugboat, had a deep impact on the Vancouver Island community of Gold River, located about 355 kilometres northwest of Victoria on Nootka Sound.

About 130 locals gathered at the community wharf Monday for a ceremonial send-off for the orca, who had made the Nootka Sound area his home since 2001 when he became separated from his pod.

The whale will be missed by more than Matea, the crowd heard.

Gold River resident Miriam Trevis, who was there, described a ceremony steeped in aboriginal traditions, complete with elders dipping cedar bows into the waters to say farewell.

She said Mowachaht chief Mike Maquinna told the ceremony nobody should feel blame for what happened to Luna.

Instead, Gold River should feel honoured Luna decided to make the area his home, he said.

Luna died Friday after he was sucked into the propeller of a large tugboat that had been idling during a winter storm.

It was the same sort of behaviour that endeared him to hundreds of others in British Columbia and around the world.

In an effort to find companionship, Luna took an increasingly dangerous interest in humans.

That behaviour was encouraged by some who watched him from the dock in Gold River. There were reports of people trying to brush his teeth and someone attempting to pour beer down his blowhole.

By 2004, Luna's playful bumping up against boats and float planes had become a serious hazard.

Fisheries officials devised a plan to have him relocated down the coast toward Victoria in an effort to have him reunited with his pod.

The mission was abandoned after local aboriginals protested. They used canoes and drums to lure Luna away from the scientists who were trying to capture him for the move.

The Mowachaht-Muchalaht believe Luna embodied the spirit of their dead chief.

Trevis, who has lived in Gold River for 25 years, said Fisheries originally didn't understand the deep spiritual and cultural bond the local aboriginals had with Luna.

"I certainly didn't want him transported away the way DFO wanted to, in a truck," said Trevis. "He was a very bright animal. He knew exactly what they were up to."

Trevis said she was grateful Luna never hurt anyone.

"The danger was there."

Local aboriginals are planning a celebration ceremony for Luna sometime this summer, likely in July.

Girotto said he and his daughter saw Luna many times as the whale followed the cargo and passenger vessel M.V. Uchuck III.

Girotto runs the Uchuck, a cargo and passenger vessel which ferries supplies and people to Gold River and the tiny inlet communities and camps up and down Nootka Sound.