Ice Whale (10 page)

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 millions 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.

T
oozak 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.

F
or 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. He 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.

“Water sky‚” he said as Toozak IV came up beside him.

“Water throws dark shadows on the bottom of clouds. Snow and ice throw white ones. So the dark bottom of clouds say ‘open water.' It's called
uiñiq
[UN-yik] a ‘lead.' We go whaling when we see the water sky. It means the whales are migrating past‚ even though we don't see many whales anymore. Yankee whaling nearly wiped them out.”

“I know of one whale‚” Toozak IV said. “I call him Siku. He is still out there. I saw him in a place far away from here. Teach me where the whales swim on their migration so that I may find him again.”

Ernest turned and looked silently at Toozak IV before he spoke.

“Why must you find him?”

“My ancestors said a Toozak must protect him . . . I am a Toozak. I must honor this.”

“And why is that?”

“The first Toozak showed some Yankee whalers where a group of ice whales lay. He didn't think about the harm that would come to them.”

“That was very wrong‚” Ernest said in a quiet voice.

“They slaughtered them all. A great darkness was upon us‚” Toozak IV said‚ his head down. “My family's stories of this tragedy have been passed down for generations by word of mouth. My father told me.”

Ernest glanced at the miles of white sea ice before them.

“But Siku lives. That sounds like a good omen. Maybe his spirit will end some of the Yankee evils.” He squinted toward the north. “The Yankees' Bureau of Indian Affairs makes our schoolchildren speak only English‚ not our own language. They must speak English from the moment they enter the school building until the time they leave at the end of the day. They are hit with a ruler if they speak Inupiat. That's not right.”

“No‚ it's not‚” said Toozak IV. “I fear that will happen to my own son. I don't want to lose him.”

Ernest nodded.

“He will be sent out of Barrow to some faraway place for high school. We have none here. Know this so that when the time comes‚ you can decide what you want to do. But this news of Siku is good news. This Siku must be a good spirit. I will show you where the whales swim on their way to the Beaufort Sea.”

The next day Ernest and Toozak IV pulled Ernest's
umiaq
on a sled across the land-fast ice to the watery lead and set the
umiaq
afloat. Beautifully crafted‚ the boat with its wooden frame was covered with sealskins. The skins had been sewn together in the traditional way by Ernest's wife and her women friends‚ and would not leak. Their work sat like a piece of art on the water.

The two stepped into the
umiaq
.

Quietly they paddled on the glittering water. Diamond snow sparkled in the air.

When they were almost a mile out‚ Ernest tapped Toozak IV on the shoulder and pointed to swirling eddies on the surface of the ocean.

“
Kala
—whale footprints‚” he said happily. “One has passed here.”

Toozak IV looked at them.

They paddled farther on the calm ocean. They could not find the whale.