The crew rendered the blubber of their last bowhead of the season and poured the oil into barrels. They stored baleen from Siku’s mother alongside valuable polar-bear skins in the hold.
swam in circles around the killing waters. That night he went under an ice floe‚ made a breathing crack‚ and hung there. Dawn found him still there.
Feeling the misery of loneliness‚ he dropped down among the crabs and brittlestars on the ocean floor.
An Arctic octopus‚ living in a wrecked ship’s hull‚ came out of the captain’s quarters and snatched a small fish with the suction cups on her arms. She wrapped it up in them and carried it back to the captain’s watery rooms. There she consumed it.
“Ummmmm ummmmmm . . .” cried. Although he had been weaned from his mother long ago‚ he grieved that she was gone. In bowhead years‚ he was still young. His sister‚ not yet able to get her own food‚ was adopted by another female. The female suckled her‚ and after a while milk flowed.
The Thunder sailed to a Hawaiian port for the winter. Although the bowhead harvest was declining‚ these whalers would still be wealthy men.
The Arctic Ocean wreaked its vengeance on the whalers in September of 1871. Forty whaling ships had earlier sailed through the Bering Strait and up the coast of Alaska. Only seven returned. Word had it that the few remaining whales in the Arctic would be coming past Point Barrow in September and they had risked all to get them.
One of those ships‚ the Trident‚ was captained once again by Thomas Boyd. He was back in the Arctic‚ this time he had brought his only son‚ Tom II‚ with him.
Not far from the ship that day‚ was and a small group of ice whales.
The sea was rough and ships were tossing dangerously. Captain Boyd and the other whaling captains pulled their boats into the calm water between the pack ice and land-fast ice between Icy Cape and Point Franklin. Point Franklin had been named after the British explorer who, years later, would be lost attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The crew would wait there for the whales to come south on migration.
As Captain Boyd sailed for Point Franklin‚ he noticed a whale breaching nearby. It had a mark like an Eskimo dancer on its chin.
“Tom‚” he called. “It’s a whale.” Tom II came running.
“Where?” the boy shouted‚ but there were only whale footprints‚ an oval swirl of water created by the pumping flukes of a moving whale‚ and then even those disappeared.
Disappointed‚ Captain Boyd steered his ship toward the shore.
“We’ll wait here‚” he said. “That wind that’s blowing is an easterly one. It will blow the ice pack out to sea‚ and we can anchor in the deep entrance to the lagoon.”
“But the ice seems to be coming closer‚” Tom II observed.
“Captain Roys taught me about these Arctic winds‚” said his father. He knew that Arctic winds can be fickle. They will blow north and then switch southwest‚ toward shore‚ without warning‚ pushing any pack ice before it.
An advancing mass of pack ice was to windward and an unforgiving coast was to their lee. At that moment‚ some lucky ships turned and ran between the great sheet of ice and shore‚ and sailed southwest toward ice-free waters. Others stayed hoping for the east wind or a sea current to take the pack ice away.
“Father, the ice is closing in!” Tom II cried in alarm.
Captain Boyd ran for the wheel. No sooner had he taken hold of it than he heard the sound of wood splintering. He looked fore and aft. Heavy ice had closed around them.
“The ship!” he cried. “Her stern is stove!”
Glancing toward the other thirty-nine ships strung out in a line‚ he saw to his horror that many of them were being crushed between shore and the pack ice.
“Abandon ship‚” Captain Boyd ordered. He turned to Tom II. “Get in the nearest whaleboat. Water is coming in the aft cabin.” He departed.
Tom II scrambled to the cabin with the timbers crackling, put on his winter parka‚ grabbed his mittens‚ and ran to a whaleboat. The ship was listing severely to one side.
Tom II swung into the whaleboat. Rowers dropped onto their seats.
“Lower away‚” he yelled to the men at the stanchion. The whaleboat was lowered onto ice.
“Pull her over the ice to open water!” barked Captain Boyd from the deck. The whalers got out of the whaleboat‚ stepped onto the ice‚ grabbed her lines‚ and pulled with all their might.
The Trident listed to one side even more.
“Abandon ship!” Captain Boyd now shouted again. They lowered the four whaleboats‚ climbed down the ropes and rope ladders‚ and jumped into them. When every last soul was off the ship‚ Captain Boyd slid down a rope into the last whaleboat.
The Trident was rolling onto her beam ends and splintering under the vise-like grip of the ice. Tom II looked back at her and gasped. In the short time since they had abandoned ship‚ the Trident had been completely crushed by ice. Her sails had collapsed‚ her beams were splintered. Whale oil was spilling onto the ice, the hold, and into the water.
All the men were straining to pull the whaleboats over the rough ice.
“To seawater‚” the captain rasped. Suddenly an ice block as big as a house was plowing toward the whaleboat. Tom II grabbed the bench he was sitting on with both hands. His knuckles whitened. The seamen strained and hauled the whaleboat as fast as they could. They finally dragged the boat away from the encroaching ice block and reached ice-free waters. They set the whaleboat afloat‚ jumped in‚ and began rowing away from the ice pack.
Other crews from other ships were desperately hauling their whaleboats as well. Seven ships had slipped free of the ice and were out at sea‚ including the Daniel Webster. The crew of the Trident drew up alongside her and was welcomed aboard. All seagoing whaling ships rescue other whalers in distress. In fact‚ helping fellow sailors is the first law of the sea. Packed like sardines‚ the sailors stood on the Daniel Webster’s deck and in the distance watched the Trident and other ships splinter into shreds.
Thirty-two ships were abandoned in the ice near Point Belcher‚ west of Barrow; amazingly no lives were lost, which was not often the case. The Eskimos saw it as the ocean’s revenge for killing whales for money instead of for food. Later‚ the Yankee whalers would refer to it as the Disaster of 1871.
On the Daniel Webster Captain Boyd sought out her captain. “This might be the end of whaling‚” he said to him. “Too few whales‚ too many wrecks.”
“This is the end of whaling‚” the captain answered. “Black oil has been struck in Pennsylvania. It will be cheaper and it keeps on flowing.”
Captain Tom Boyd stood on the deck with Tom II and looked out on the windy‚ gray Arctic Ocean. A lone whale blew. On his chin was a mark shaped like an Eskimo dancer‚ his hand up‚ his knees bent.
Despite everything‚ Tom II smiled. The whale would be safe for now.
The ship turned south to again face the terrible storms of the Bering Sea.
A blustery six weeks later‚ Captain Boyd and his crew arrived in Hawaii.
Nothing remained of the Trident.
pumped his scarred flukes and swam by himself behind his group of whales‚ who were headed southwest for the Russian coast. It was fall.
A pod of beluga whales‚ white as snow‚ caught up and followed him. They were stocky and about twice the length of a porpoise. Siku’s big wake made swimming easier for them. He also pleased them. He was a gentle whale‚ a bowhead‚ and they enjoyed his company. Around them‚ Arctic lion’s mane jellyfish‚ floated like dream ghosts. Forests of seaweed began to appear below Siku to mark his progress south. The belugas left Siku just beyond Barrow.
Near the Russian coast‚ heard the screeching‚ lugubrious tones and whistling chatter of other bowhead whale “songs” far ahead of him. It was a comforting sound to a lonely bowhead.
Ahead of him mill
ions of pink salmon hatchlings, the smallest and most northern of the Pacific salmon, were moving in a living cloud. The young salmon were heading for the deep ocean in order to grow. Two years from this time‚ they would return to the same freshwater streams where they had hatched. There they would spawn‚ deposit eggs‚ and die. Their eggs would hatch‚ the fry would swim downstream to the sea‚ and the cycle of life and death would go on.
As swam south along the Russian coast‚ he came upon a village. The waters didn’t taste right. Dead whales floated around the spot. The scene was morbid. The Yankees were taking only the valuable baleen from the bowheads they were killing now. Whale oil was being replaced by the black fossil oil‚ so they now killed increasingly just for the baleen.
Siku spy hopped. He saw no people‚ no dogs‚ no smoke. The village houses had fallen in; their drying racks were empty.
The walrus and whale population had been decimated. This‚ together with Yankee diseases like measles, influenza‚ scarlet fever, and smallpox, had led to starvation and to the collapse of many villages.
The water lapped softly on the shore. Over the swish heard the sounds of a whaling ship coming toward him. He dove. The ship was so near that he could hear the men talking on board. Whales listen. He stayed down in the water until he no longer heard them. Then he swam on through the Bering Strait.
Toozak was hunting caribou on the coast near the Kasegaluk [Ka-SIG-ah-luk] Lagoon seven days travel from his village. Suddenly he heard the shriek of wood splintering in the distance. He knew that sound. Ice was crushing the white man’s wooden whaling ships. He climbed an ice block and squinted. Seamen were strung out across the ice hauling whaleboats. Their ships were crushed to splinters between the pack ice and land-fast ice. He smiled; they were leaving their ships too fast to take the furnishings. There would be splendid articles to salvage later from the wrecked ships.
When he got home‚ Toozak found his father-in-law insulating his house with snow. He piled snow around the walls‚ sealed one more wind leak as the young man was getting off his sled.
“Kakinnaaq‚” Toozak said. “The white men are abandoning ships that are caught in the ice. They are taking only their lives. Let us get their furnishings.”
“We must see what they left behind. Get my big sleds‚” Kakinnaaq said‚ smiling. “We go.”
Toozak harnessed six dogs to each of two sleds. Kakinnaaq took one‚ he the other‚ and they mushed for a week over new-fallen snow to the ships that were heaved over in the ice.
Toozak and Kakinnaaq climbed carefully onto the tilted deck of a ship and stepped around broken rigging‚ spilled oil‚ and the bricks of the broken tryworks.
“Pass things to me‚” said Kakinnaaq. “I will put them on the sleds. I see inland Eskimos coming for the salvage. We must hurry.”
Toozak passed pots‚ pans‚ knives‚ line‚ and even the huge windlass to Kakinnaaq. When they had loaded all they could carry‚ they lashed down the load and rode off. Toozak was in the lead‚ laughing victoriously and looking back at his wife’s father. Suddenly he stopped laughing. A whiskey cask was lying under a coil of line on Kakinnaaq’s sled. He halted the dogs. Walking back to his father-in-law’s sled‚ he grabbed the box and threw it off the sled.
“What are you doing?” Kakinnaaq shouted‚ jumping off his sled to pick up the whiskey cask.
“You know it’s poison. You can’t hunt when you drink!” Toozak’s eyes misted as he realized what he’d done. He had spoken disrespectfully to an elder‚ an evil thing.
“You’re right‚” Kakinnaaq said gruffly to Toozak‚ and got back on the rear of his sled. He placed the cask on the snow. “Kiita‚ kiita.” The dogs started off again.
Toozak wondered if the curse from his boyhood was finally catching up with him. The world was changing—the whales becoming fewer and fewer‚ the walrus disappearing. Yankees would trade whiskey to locals for furs and information about the whereabouts of whales. Then they would hunt the whales‚ taking only the baleen and leaving the rest of the animal to rot. And the hunters who drank wouldn’t care. Toozak knew that alcohol must be an evil thing if it allowed people simply to stop caring about the land and the animals. Soon‚ there wouldn’t be any whales left at all‚ and who would be around to care?
Toozak knew that he would always care. It was his mission—his destiny—to protect Siku from harm.
For two generations‚ the number of bowhead whales in the Arctic Ocean remained very small. Although Siku was spotted once by an Eskimo whaler in 1885‚ no one had seen him since. From time to time over the years‚ Toozak’s grandson‚ Toozak III‚ and his grandson’s son‚ Toozak IV‚ paddled out in the ocean to look for Siku and then paddled back unrewarded.
Toozak IV made his home in Wainwright‚ an Inupiat Eskimo village, that was a center for whaling. Like many Eskimos‚ the Toozaks had begun to wonder about the powers of shamans‚ but they each told their sons of the curse and the promise to protect Siku. Theirs was a history book handed down by voice. They had no written language. Toozak IV had come to Wainwright for work and because he still believed Siku was alive and that he must protect him.
When Toozak IV’s wife‚ Lilaaq‚ gave birth to Charlie Toozak V‚ the market for bowhead baleen had vanished‚ and Yankee whaling abruptly ended. Yankees were no longer sailing the Arctic waters to hunt the whale. Only the fur traders remained. They had married Eskimo women and stayed on in the Arctic operating the fur trading posts‚ and fishing and hunting for their families.
Then Wainwrighters reported sighting an increasing number of whales swimming by their village. They were thrilled. A whale would help feed many townsfolk all year. Gathering a whaling crew together‚ they set up a whale camp fifteen miles out on the sea ice. It consisted of two white canvas tents—one a sleeping tent‚ the other a cooking tent‚ and a sealskin boat with willow ribs. They propped the aft end of the boat on a block of ice at the water’s edge so that they could slide it into the water at a moment’s notice. They watched and waited.
When Toozak III heard about it‚ he and his son went out on the sea ice to work for the whaling crew. They cleaned pots and pans and did some cooking. They watched the black water for whales. These two searched for one whale in particular—the one they had only heard stories of‚ with the mark of the dancing Eskimo on its chin.
Spring passed to summer. One morning Toozak IV was on foot when he saw on the ocean a smoke-belching ship. It had no sails‚ but it moved steadily along and was throwing something into the water. That afternoon he found a massive fishnet on the beach by the camp.
“Aapa‚” he said to his father. “I’ve heard that whales get tangled in these Yankee nets.”
Together‚ they walked to the beach and gazed at the yards and yards of net and ropes. Toozak III held his son’s hand as the boy leaned out as far as he could and grabbed the net. Together they pulled it high onto the beach.
Before them a stream of mist shot into the air and a whale breached. On his chin was the image of an Eskimo dancer!
“Siku!” father and son gasped. The whale looked at them and they at him. A spark ignited between them‚ and then the great whale rolled on his side and slid gracefully back into the water. When he was out of sight‚ Toozak III and Toozak IV looked at each other in great surprise.
“That is the great Siku‚” said Toozak III. He is still alive. It is a good thing we pulled the net from the water. Nets like that are dangerous to him and all whales.”
That winter the flu came to the Eskimos in the village near Wainwright. Many died. Among them was Lilaaq‚ Toozak IV’s wife.
Toozak IV laid her coffin‚ along with hundreds of others‚ on the frozen ground in the cemetery. She and the other dead could not easily be buried until the June thaw.
“I have no life here without Lilaaq. I know what I must do‚” Toozak IV said. “I must find the old whaling captain who lives in Barrow. H
e is a generous man‚ and knows many things. He can teach me about whales and the old ways. They say he is called Ernest‚ and he knows more about ice whales than anyone. My life is now Siku’s.”
They walked slowly home from the cemetery‚ gathered food‚ weapons‚ and a stack of furs as well as pots and pans.
“I must go with you‚” Toozak III said to Toozak IV. “We must protect Siku together. There are new threats to him. We will learn to find whales and how to think like them from one of the great whaling captains. One who knows them in the old ways. Our life here is over.”
He counted on his fingers and said‚ “Siku is seventy years old. He is very old and we must continue to protect him.”
It did not take the family long to gather their possessions. Harnessing the dog team to a sled‚ Toozak IV stood beside his father at the rear of the graceful carrier. His son‚ Charlie‚ was nestled in the sled basket among caribou furs.
Toozak IV raised his voice. “Kiita!” he shouted. The dogs bolted out of the village. Charlie giggled.
Three days later‚ they rode into prosperous Barrow with its trading post‚ community house‚ grammar school‚ and restaurant.
Wooden houses clustered on wide streets. Caribou antlers were scattered aomng them and hides hung on stretchers before them. Snowdrifts were still unmelted against many houses and old whale bones marked the community house.
Toozak III and IV were pleased. They could be happy here. That afternoon they rode to the western end of town and unpacked.
Days later‚ Toozak IV started building a sod hut with whale bones that he had found on the beach for supports. He next got a job at the store and he and the small family settled in with help from the women in the village.
When the eiders were flying over Barrow in black threads five miles long‚ Toozak IV knew that it was time to approach Ernest‚ the famous Eskimo whaling captain.
He came upon him standing beside his sealskin umiaq at the edge of the land-fast ice looking out to sea. He had his back to the village and was smiling at a cloud with a dark gray bottom on the horizon.
Ice Whale Page 5