Sea of Slaughter by Farley Mowat

Author:Farley Mowat
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: NAT011000
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 2012-09-11T21:00:00+00:00

Although the execution of the grey whale took place along much of the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States, by far the bloodiest destruction was committed in the Cape Cod and Long Island district, where extensive shoals lying athwart the whales’ migration route made them especially vulnerable to boat whalers. Consequently, this region is fully entitled to its claim to being the cradle of the American whaling industry. It is also entitled to renown as the place that gave the impetus to the first major extinction to be perpetrated by Western man in North America... the first of many such.

Bowhead

During the autumn of 1947, I was in Churchill, Manitoba, the northern terminus of the Hudson Bay Railroad on the shore of the vast inland sea of the same name. The straggling little community was dominated by an enormous concrete grain elevator that towered like a misplaced skyscraper over a primeval world of rolling tundra and icy seas. Yet impressive as it was, my most vivid memory from that visit is of a giant of another sort.

One day when an easterly gale was blowing across the surging waters of the Bay, dusting the dim world in driven snow, I sought shelter in the bar of a hotel. I was nursing a beer when a red-faced fellow stomped into the place.

“Down to the gov’mint pier!” he yelled. “Seen it myself! Big as a goddamn boxcar! Bigger’n two of the buggers. You gotta see it, boys!”

Twenty minutes later the grain-loading pier jutting into the ice-rimmed harbour was crowded with most of the male residents of Churchill. I stood among them, parka hood pulled up against the freezing spindrift. Next to me, three Inuit hunched their shoulders. They were from Pond Inlet on distant Baffin Island and had been shipped south to be trained as truck drivers for an American radar base. I had met them before and found them morose and withdrawn, but now they could hardly contain their excitement. When I asked if they had seen the visitor who had drawn us to the pier, they exploded in words and gesticulations.

“Eeee! Yiss! Arveq—the Big One! Look there!”

The waters heaved and there it was, a glistening blue-black monster, massive as an upturned ship, looming through the storm-murk not a hundred feet from the concrete cliff on which we stood. It seemed at least as big as the sixty-foot tug moored to the pier. I heard a muffled whooooooffff as twin, steamy jets spouted twenty feet into the air and blew down upon us, bringing a touch of warmth and a rank, fishy stink. The Inuit were beside themselves.

“Breathe well! Get strong! Go north! Take word of us!” they shouted.

The whale spouted three times, then sounded, seeming to roll down into the depths like the segment of a gigantic wheel. The snow was thickening and soon all things were hidden in a full-fledged blizzard. I never saw it again... but he, or she, was unforgettable.

The still-ebullient Inuit joined me for a beer and we discussed the visitation.

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