Synopses & Reviews
Inches below the surface, [the whales] appear not so much gray as whitish blue. The immensity of these creatures is overwhelming. Fully grown they reach at least thirty-five feet in length and weigh more than thirty tons -- ten times the size of a large elephant. The mother dwarfs our little boat. The calf is nearly one-third her size. With a mere flick of the tail, either whale could overturn us.
Eye of the Whale focuses on one great whale in particular -- the coastal-traveling California gray whale. Gray whales make the longest migration of any mammal -- from the lagoons of Baja California to the feeding grounds of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia (nearly 6,000 miles). That the gray whale exists today is nothing short of miraculous. Whaling fleets twice massacred the species to near extinction -- first during the nineteenth century and again during the early part of the twentieth century. As they moved in for the kill, whalers claimed their prey by naming it: "Hard-Head"; "Devil-fish"; "sea-serpent crossed with an alligator."
These ominous tags suggest a fearsome creature, yet today the grays are most commonly known as the friendly whale, the species that inspired the whale-watching industry. Eye of the Whale shows the life-changing effect the gray whale has had upon people past and present -- whalers, hunters, marine scientists, whale watchers, and even businessmen -- who have looked into the eye of a whale and have come away transformed. Over the course of this astonishing book, the gray whale emerges as a millennial metaphor, mirroring a host of ecological, political, and social issues concerning our relationship to nature.
The book also traces the remarkable story of Charles Melville Scammon, the whaling captain responsible for bringing gray whales to the brink of extinction after discovering the Baja lagoons in the 1850s to 1860s. Paradoxically, he went on to become one of the most renowned naturalist writers of his time, and in 1874 authored and illustrated a still-definitive work, The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of North America.
More than a hundred years later, author Dick Russell sets out to track the migration of the gray whale and to retrace Scammon's own path. This epic journey stretches from Mexico to California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver Island, Alaska, and into Siberia and even remote Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. In these exotic locales seethe the current controversies surrounding the gray whale: an effort by Mitsubishi and the Mexican government to build a massive new salt factory within its pristine nursery area; the Makah tribe's renewed hunting of gray whales after a hiatus of seventy years; Japan's recruitment of the Makah and other indigenous peoples in their quest to resurrect commercial whaling.
Eye of the Whale is a stunning work of scientific reporting and travel writing that greatly advances our understanding not only of the gray whale but of the natural world. While it may be impossible to know for certain the fate of this majestic creature, with Russell's sage guidance we may glimpse it -- in the eye of the whale.
Review
"Russell visits sites along the migratory route and talks with scientists, environmentalists, and whale hunters, and the result is an evocative travelogue as well as a lively scientific presentation." Booklist
Review
"Dick Russell has done for the gray whale what he did for the striped bass taught us to love both the fish and the fishermen. In a riveting tale that celebrates the history and culture of the whale fishery, Russell guides us gently to a consciousness of the critical importance of the gray whales' struggle and survival to modern civilization." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,
president, Water Keeper Alliance
Review
"An environmental story with at least the glimmer of a happy ending! Dick Russell's marvelous accounts of the human attempts to decimate and then to protect the great gray whale make for a wonderful tale a tale we need to tell over and over and over so we don't slip back into the bad old habits, so that we extend our compassion and activism toward other less charismatic corners of creation." Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
Review
"A book as grand in its breadth and vision as the scale of its magnificent subject, Eye of the Whale is fitting tribute to the trials and tribulations of our troubled truce with one of the world's most moving and magnificent and instructive fellow creatures. Listen carefully. Ponder the implications of the compassion that these beings have shown us, and you will grow enriched by the splendor of this sprawling tale." Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean
Review
"The story of humanity's involvement with gray whales is long and extraordinarily intricate. Russell has researched his subject well and is a grand storyteller. He enriches his text with information that is new even to those of us who work with whales daily. Although I lacked the time to read it all, I dipped into Russell's book many times and kept coming upon rich and rewarding accounts of events about which I knew little. It's an excellent read...get it." Roger Payne, author of Among Whales
About the Author
Dick Russell is the acclaimed author of The Man Who Knew Too Much and Black Genius: And the American Experience. A longtime environmental journalist, Russell's work has appeared in Boston Magazine, The Nation, Sports Illustrated, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. A recipient of the Chevron Conservation Award, he divides his time between Boston and Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
Contents Part One
Prologue: "Whales of Passage"
Chapter 1 Close Encounter at San Ignacio Lagoon
Chapter 2 The Whaler Who Became a Naturalist
Chapter 3 The Poet and the Saltworks War
Chapter 4 The Makah Tribe: Hunting the Gray Whale
Chapter 5 A Tribal Elder and the Gray Whales
Chapter 6 Return to La Laguna
Chapter 7 Journey to the Pillars of Salt
Chapter 8 Whale Watchers: The Scientist and the Artist
Chapter 9 Sound Check: Echoes from Magdalena Bay
Chapter 10 Orcas and Grays Along the Shores of Monterey
Chapter 11 Oregon and Washington: Scholars of the Great Migration
Chapter 12 The Kill
Chapter 13 Whalemen of Vancouver Island
Part Two
Chapter 14 Alaskan Journey: Beginnings Chapter 15 Whales in Strange Places: Kenai, Kodiak, and Unimak Pass Chapter 16 Into the Bering Sea Chapter 17 Among the Hunters at Bering Strait Chapter 18 To the Diomedes: Life on the Edge Chapter 19 Sakhalin Island: Last of the Western Grays Chapter 20 Breakthrough Across Troubled Waters Chapter 21 Catastrophe in Chukotka Chapter 22 Northern Coda: End of the Expedition
Part Three
Chapter 23 Christopher Reeve and the Gray Whale Chapter 24 Scientific Puzzles in San Diego Chapter 25 Mysterious Evolutions Chapter 26 Scammon's Legacy Chapter 27 Victory at San Ignacio Lagoon
Epilogue: An Uncertain Future
Notes
Other Sources Consulted
Useful Web Sites
Acknowledgments
Index