Ice Whale (7 page)
Authors: Jean Craighead George
After three months of eating and playingâ
heard a shrill treble note. “
”
Prepare to go south
.
had sent the message. He had seen a change in the angle of the sun's rays slanting into the seawater. It said to him that new ice would be forming soon. The almost-three-month-long day had ended. Brief nights followedâ then longer and longer nights. When the surface of the Beaufort Sea turned frothy with crystalsshrilled his “turn south” message againâ and addedâ “
.”
Go
!
swallowed a last mouthful of zooplankton and joined. He swam slowly beside the immense eighty-five-ton whale until they reached a violet band of seawater. It was the cold current circling down from the high-latitude Arctic Sea to join the current from the Eastern Beaufort.andswam with it. In this wayâ they were swept west toward Russia on their autumn route.
Other whales joined them until thirty individualsâ including's mother and five other femalesâ made up their group. Male and female bowheads mingled for the fall migration and some chose mates.
was just beginning to be interested in females. He swam beside one all the way to Barrowâ the two of them calling back and forth. Ten days laterâ they neared Tikigaq. Siku noticed a young Eskimo fishing from a boat some distance from land. He left his friend to seek out the man. He knew him. He circled the manâ just to be sure. He recognized his face and sensed he was a good man.
had learned this early in life. For whalesâ this understanding could mean escaping a dangerous situation. Orcas and redâ whiteâ and blue Yankee whaling ships were danger. Butknew this man with the kind eyes was good.