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Ice Whale
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
George, Jean Craighead, 1919-2012.
Ice whale / by Jean Craighead George.
pages cm • Summary: In 1848, ten-year-old Toozak, a Yupik Eskimo, sees a whale being born and is told by a shaman that he and his descendants must protect that whale, which Toozak names Siku, as long as it lives. • ISBN 978-1-101-61269-9
1. Yupik Eskimos—Juvenile fiction. [1. Yupik Eskimos—Fiction. 2. Eskimos—Fiction. 3. Bowhead whale—Fiction. 4. Whales—Fiction. 5. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 6. Arctic regions—Fiction.] I. Title. • PZ7.G2933Ice 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013034090
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
On The Use Of The Symbols For The Whale Sounds
Map
The Bowhead Whale
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
A Note From The Editor
Acknowledgments
Afterword
ON THE USE OF THE SYMBOLS FOR THE WHALE SOUNDS
In the “In the Ocean” chapters, the author invented symbols that are meant to represent whale sounds. Each whale has its own individual sound, and the author worked out these different symbolic representations for that whale’s name. is the symbol for Siku’s name. is the symbol for the old whale, Tiguk’s, name.
The sea is anything but a quiet place, and it was a riveting discovery, more than fifty years ago, that whales make sounds or calls underwater that could be recorded. Scientists capture them through underwater recording devices that pick up the sounds as vibrations in the water and convert them to signals that can be heard through speakers. The sounds can also be transcribed as written symbols, somewhat like music where tone or frequency appears as up-and-down strokes arranged on a kind of horizontal grid that indicates time. The result looks a bit like a musical score.
Undoubtedly whale sounds are meant as communication. The author invented symbols for calls that communicated danger, navigation directions, warning, and more. Toothed whales can echolocate, too, enabling them to find food, objects, and each other. We hope this explanation helps as you encounter the symbols in the book.
The ocean waves rolled and crested‚ rolled and crested. Ice floes surfed them. The sun shone cold orange at 10:00 p.m.
The day‚ July 23. The year‚ l848. The place‚ the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.
On that historic day, the whaling bark Superior‚ a chunky‚ blunt-nosed ship with five whaleboats hanging above her deck‚ set her sails into the wind. She sped due north and became the first Yankee whaler to sail through the Bering Strait. The tall black rocks of the Diomede Islands loomed in her path. Captain Thomas Roys was trying to steer clear of them.
Suddenly the wind died. The bark’s sails sagged and the Superior came to a stop. A gull with no wind to ride alighted on the ship’s midmast. Walrus barked in the distance. The terrified seamen gathered along her rail. They stared not at the rocks‚ but at the formidable Arctic Ocean ahead.
Only a day ago they learned that Captain Roys had paid a hundred dollars to a Russian naval officer for his charts of this ocean. Whale numbers had been decimated by two centuries of whaling in the Atlantic and Pacific. Foreign seamen who had sailed the Arctic Ocean had described it as a dangerous ocean of ice‚ fog‚ and blizzards. Frightened by the terrifying rumors of sailors freezing to death‚ the crew talked of mutiny.
Their captain‚ however‚ was not looking at that terrible ocean‚ but landward. Thirteen Eskimo umiaqs‚ large wood-frame canoes covered with walrus hide‚ were paddling toward the Superior. In them were three hundred powerful sealskin-clad Eskimo warriors ready to defend their waters and trade routes from intruders. They outnumbered his crew eight to one.
Captain Roys gritted his teeth. There was no wind to carry his ship out of the reach of the umiaqs‚ nor were there guns aboard to defend her. He took out his one‚ old revolver knowing it might not shoot. He wanted it at the ready anyway.
Just then a southwesterly breeze sprang up and carried the Superior away from the umiaqs and into a misty fog bank. The Eskimos grumbled—a potential trade lost. More wary of the fog than the foreigners, they turned back.
Alone and wrapped in fog‚ fear made the crew speak out. They complained aloud about where they were—in the dreaded Arctic Ocean! The first mate wept.
They talked of mutiny all through the short Alaskan twilight.
At dawn the fog lifted. The sun came out.
Whales were everywhere‚ blowing and breaching‚ splashing and waving their flukes. Some spy hopped or poked their heads straight up‚ thrusting themselves high out of the water to look at the ship. Whale footprints‚ whirlpools on the water made by the fluke of a whale swimming near the surface‚ pocked the ocean. All hands leaned against the rail‚ staring. They forgot their plan to mutiny.
“Lord in heaven‚” shouted Tom Boyd‚ the cabin boy. “Will you look at that!”
Captain Roys saw the whales and thanked his Maker. Leaning against the ship’s wheel‚ he smiled. He had steered the Superior into a fortune.
The seamen lowered their whaleboats onto the water and rowed off to hunt the gigantic mammals that were swimming everywhere just beneath the ocean surface.
The heaviest whalers sat in the center of the twenty-eight-foot whaleboats and managed the longest oars. The other men took the seats before and behind them and rowed with shorter oars. This formation kept the eggshell-like boats gliding toward the whales.
The harpooner‚ Hartson‚ a burly man‚ stood in the bow. He held his harpoon high. A line was attached to it that would secure the whale to the whaleboat when it was struck. Poised‚ Hartson waited for a whale to come up to the surface to breathe.
No one spoke. They had long a
go learned that whales could hear a whisper.
Then a whale surfaced. Hartson thrust the harpoon and struck it. It dove out of sight with the harpoon set in its back. A sea-muffled boom sounded. The seamen waited. Finally the great mammal rose slowly to the surface . . . and floated . . . dead.
“She’s a right whale‚” cheered the harpooner. “She floats‚ that makes her the ‘right’ whale to take.” He laughed and the crew pulled in the line and made it fast to the boat. The whalers now towed the whale to their ship.
When they finally brought the whale alongside the Superior‚ Captain Roys leaned over the railing and stared. The whale was fifty-five feet long with a massive head one-third the length of its body. Its blowhole sat on the highest part of its bowed head. Black in color with smooth skin‚ it had blunt flippers and large flukes. Captain Roys smiled. It was not a humpback whale‚ or even a Pacific right whale.
“We have a Greenland right whale‚” he shouted. “That’s the blasted best!”
Greenland right whales‚ or bowhead whales‚ were the prize of commercial whalers. A bowhead had more blubber than any other whale. When this blubber was rendered into whale oil‚ it would burn in thousands of lamps in America. The whale’s baleen‚ or so-called whalebone‚ was used to make umbrella spokes‚ corset stays‚ and hoop-skirt frames for ladies. The Atlantic right whale had helped make the United States rich and world prominent. Now‚ Captain Roys knew‚ the bowhead would do the same.
The whalers hunting the Atlantic Ocean had killed so many right whales that they were now nearly extinct. The hunters had sought new oceans and traveled into the North Pacific. There they found thousands of whales. By 1848‚ they had hunted the right whales in that ocean to low numbers as well.
And now there was this great discovery in the Arctic Ocean—tens of thousands of the most valuable of whales. Captain Roys’s gamble had proved him right. The whalers harpooned another and another. They sang and cheered.
The blubber of these bowheads was at least a foot thick‚ the black skin an inch thick. The baleen—long‚ narrow‚ fringed plates composed of the same substance as fingernails that hung in the bowhead’s mouth—was much longer than that of any other whale they had hunted before. The sailors looked at the bowhead in wonderment.
The slab of thick blubber was so heavy that it took eight men pulling on the hoist to lift it from the carcass. They sang chanties as they worked. Other whalers‚ standing on the cutting stage, a platform attached to the side of the ship‚ reached down with large sharp knives on long poles to cut more blubber from the whale. When it was hauled on board‚ it was chopped in small pieces for the tryworks‚ cauldrons on the ship that rendered the blubber to oil. When cooled, the whalers poured the oil in barrels.
All day long Captain Roys reaped immense profits for his sponsors‚ the owners‚ his crew‚ and‚ of course‚ himself. He smiled and stared at the bloody ocean and the blue-green ice floes that rode it.
The whalers worked on, hoisting strip after strip of whale blubber up to the ship’s deck.
Superior’s crew killed many bowhead whales that summer. By the end of August‚ they had filled their ship and sped south away from the freezing Arctic‚ through the Bering Strait to the Pacific Ocean and on to Hawaii.
When the ship arrived in Honolulu‚ word traveled from captain to captain‚ seamen to seamen‚ that there were thousands of bowhead whales in the western Arctic Ocean. Captains outfitted their ships that winter and prepared for the long trip back to the Arctic in the spring.
The slaughter of the great bowhead whale had begun in the western Arctic.
Toozak‚ a Yup’ik Eskimo boy on Saint Lawrence Island, stared at the whaling ship just off the coast. For a long time it sat ominously on the sun-silvered ocean. Then‚ frightened‚ he paddled for shore. He must tell his father‚ a warrior‚ what he had seen. The ship had a red‚ white‚ and blue flag. Where was this ship from? What did the mariners who were on board it want?
Not far from his village he stopped. A great whale swam near him. She suddenly rolled‚ her flipper rising ten feet above the ocean. Through the clear water Toozak saw a baby whale slide tail first from her body. He was light gray and as long as Toozak’s kayak of fourteen feet. The baby‚ he thought‚ must weigh as much as all twenty dogs in my family’s dog team.
“That’s a big calf‚” he said aloud.
Toozak bowed his head out of respect. He had seen the birth of a whale! This was a great privilege. Even his father had not seen a whale born. Only the Great Spirit could have bestowed this honor upon him.
The mother whale rolled over to her son. She nudged him gently‚ guiding him to the surface. The newborn took his first breath. Toozak saw a mark on his chin. It looked like an Eskimo man dancing‚ with one arm in the air and legs bent at the knees. Toozak stared.
That’s a special whale‚ he thought.
Pacific herring swam around them‚ glistening like frost. Krill‚ tiny shrimp-like creatures‚ swirled in clouds before them. Overhead in the sky‚ snow geese migrated north. A seal startled by the whales dove off her ice floe and swam down out of sight. Crabs on the seafloor where the sunlight barely reached climbed over sea anemones’ stinging tendrils. Fish clicked.
A whale had been born.
The mother whale sang to the bowhead community. She said‚ “My son has been born.”
Bowhead whales are usually born in May‚ as the Yup’ik say‚ the Moon of Egg Laying. This baby whale was special. He had been born in July‚ the Moon of the Flowering Time of Plants. He had a destiny.
The boy‚ Toozak‚ put his ear to his paddle, and heard a high sound. It sounded like ‚ in the sea. His mother had trilled her baby’s name to the water world.
could swim at birth. After his first breath‚ he pumped his flukes‚ gliding to his mother’s belly. Instinctively he found the protruding nipple. His mother’s strong muscles pumped rich milk into his mouth. He nursed. While he fed‚ he and his mother loitered near Toozak. Toozak watched‚ fascinated. He knew this was something few people had ever witnessed.
surfaced to breathe again‚ saw the boy‚ and rolled on his side to bring his eye to the surface. He looked at Toozak and Toozak looked at him‚ and saw his human-like eyes‚ with pupils‚ irises‚ and eyelids much like his own.
“You are my brother‚” he exclaimed. “I will call you Siku.”
stared long into Toozak’s kind eyes.
And something happened between them.
returned to his mother and Toozak marveled at what he had seen. More wonderful than that‚ he had felt a bond with the whale he saw being born.
He was sure had felt that connection too. His eyes had said so. Toozak paddled to shore.
The mother did not let her youngster idle. It was learning time. She had to teach him the best coastal currents to travel on for their migration from the Bering Sea to the Beaufort Sea and back again. The round trip was 2‚500 miles to their lush feeding grounds and back‚ with many deceptive currents. must learn quickly.
He learned that the sun was very important. The bright rays that shone into open water were angled. The angle and brightness were his mother’s clock and calendar. They became his too. Learning to find his way was important. Just one navigational error and he might drown under the thick ice. He learned so that one day he could migrate from sea to sea without his mother. As an adult, he would one day be able to break ice three feet thick.
By the end of his first few days‚ had not only learned part of the sea route but had gained a hundred and fifty pounds and grown four inches. For the next nine months he would nurse and gain weight rapidly‚ nourished on just his mother’s rich milk. When he stopped nursing and had to feed himself‚ it would be years before he grew again.
Such was the early life of a bowhead whale.
The mother and son swam on undisturbed. They saw birds when
they breathed‚ and fish‚ seals‚ and krill when they swam. In this kaleidoscope of life they cruised slowly northward toward the top of the world‚ two beautiful and friendly animals.
Suddenly the mother screeched a new note‚“”
Enemy!
A pod of orca whales came charging toward them‚ eager to kill and eat a sweet baby whale. had to learn to recognize the enemies. They had black-and-white bodies and ice-white teeth. Like him‚ the orcas surfaced to breathe. Like him‚ they were whales‚ but these were whales with teeth‚ not baleen‚ those filters that strained tiny food from the seawater. These whales grabbed and tore their prey. Even in whale language‚ they were called “killer whales.”
As the orcas drew nearer ’s whale aunt‚ who had traveled nearby her pregnant and nursing sister to give her aid if she needed it‚ swam up to . She sheltered him while his mother drove off the orcas with powerful slaps from her immense flukes—blows that could kill even an orca.
After a long while his mother came back to her sister and son. She nuzzled close to her baby.
Years passed and the boy Toozak grew to be a man of twenty. He belonged to the Yup’ik people‚ a skilled and ancient group of natives who lived on the islands‚ rivers‚ and coastal areas of the east coast of Siberia and the west coast of what would one day be called Alaska. Over the years young Toozak had killed many walrus‚ seals‚ and even‚ when he was sixteen‚ a polar bear on the Saint Lawrence Island‚ his home. He was not just a good hunter‚ but a superior one. Hunters were essential to life.
For the last ten summers‚ Toozak had seen over one hundred Yankee whaling ships flying the red‚ white‚ and blue flag sail by his village. He saw them kill many whales that his father called “noble spirits.” Other ships were foreign traders of ironware‚ beads‚ tobacco‚ alcohol‚ and woven goods. They traded these items for the Eskimos’ magnificent furs and the ivory tusks of walrus. The traders rarely killed a whale‚ though.