Doreen Cunningham: “Song of the Seas” – Gray Giants

Gray whales find plenty of food along the coasts of Alaska. On the coasts of Mexico, they give birth to their young and raise them for four months without eating. In the spring, a hungry mother whale and her babies embark on a perilous journey north.

In “Song of the Sailor,” Doreen Cunningham weaves gripping things Nature writing About the life and behavior of whales with their highly personal journey and self-discovery. As a freelance journalist and a young mother, she was caught up in a bitter custody battle that left her emotionally and financially devastated.

After being stranded in a home for single mothers, she devised a rescue plan: She would travel to Mexico with her two-year-old son and track gray whales.

Her book tells of this bold undertaking. Descriptions of rugged nature and wild boat trips over meter-high waves in search of mother whales and their babies make up the writing’s strongest passages. Waves roar, ice floes glisten in the sun, whales emerge from the water, and thick fog blows over Alaska.

The author has already met some Inupiat there on previous trips and is now working to deepen her relationship with indigenous women in particular. Her book gives a highly personal and detailed insight into the challenges of Inupiat life between cultural destruction, alcoholism, youth migration, the darkness and cold of life in the far north, and a deep love for traditional ways of life, including whaling.

Communicating with these people and migrating whales with their young, Doreen Cunningham experiences her transformation, finding solace and encouragement in the will to survive in humans and animals. Unfortunately, the book’s personal passages sometimes slip into kitsch or, unlike the neo-naturalistic prose, seem a bit unimaginative and stamped.

Its text becomes incomparably stronger when the author talks about marine pollution, climate change, and the situation that threatens the lives of whales. Longingly she calls out across the sea for one of the gray giants and asks herself, “Can he hear me? Maybe he’s calling me, a low-pitched voice that reverberates from underwater canyons and can travel hundreds of miles.” Perhaps the animal’s hearing was damaged by being bombarded by air guns used to forage for fossil fuels.

Doreen Cunningham says such tests can take months. The pulsating shots penetrate several hundred kilometers into the sea floor every minute, destroying the internal organs of giant squids, killing zooplankton and making whales’ complex vocal communication impossible.

The animals desperately try to avoid the industrial noise. Some species have already gone silent. Doreen Cunningham donates a portion of the book’s proceeds to the original Sea Guardians who live off this book and fight to protect it.