From the Archipelago: Passage Between Worlds

June-July 1998

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Alexandra Morton

When my neighbour called on the VHF radio to ask if I'd seen the whales out in front of my place, I was embarrassed to say no. My life is increasingly devoted to staring at paperwork, bargaining for the life of this place. I did my usual pre-whale scramble grabbing camera, tape recorder, film and tapes. Little Clio was fast asleep so she stayed with Dad as I slipped the lines from the dock.

Contact with a true extra-terrestrial

Approaching whales is a passage between worlds. My thoughts of deadlines, meals and bills dissolve and have no place in my head as long as I am with whales. Perhaps this is why I get a little crazy if I go too long between encounters. I need to escape the busy-ness that goes with being human.

I try to get a feel for where the whales are going to surface next and move slowly closer. When the little family rises to breathe again, I scrutinize each dorsal fin through my binoculars. The light is coming from behind the whales, illuminating their breath, and as the fin passes through the little silver cloud, it's hard to see any distinguishing marks. It may take a long time to get a good look because I don't want to disturb them or prevent them from finding even a single meal.

I am very aware that declining fish stocks and the extreme toxic load BC's whales carry in their flesh have made survival more difficult.

Finally, I see a downward slanting cut at the base of the male's fin... "P 10 pod" my mind guesses. But does the rest of the family fit or have I made an error and it isn't P 10 at all?

P 10 is a transient, mammal-eating group of whales. I know the name is not very imaginative and in fact a new alphanumeric code has been assigned to this pod, so it isn't even their name anymore, just a memory. But I know these whales. When I first encountered the young male, he wasn't full grown and his family had six members. The mammal-eaters have a code they appear to live by. Families must number five members or less. Theirs was the only one to break this rule and they eventually did bring their numbers down to five.

On this beautiful morning I drift for hours watching them circle in several locations. As with many killer whale encounters I have no idea what they are up to. I am just content to be. in their presence, and happy that they still find the archipelago a place they want to be.

********************

The hummingbirds have returned to the archipelago with impeccable timing to feed on and pollinate the salmon berries just blooming. The herring spawn seems poor this year, but there are more young herring schooling beneath our docks than there have been in several years. The dolphins are maintaining their mysterious disappearance. I learned that the capelin they were feeding on were immigrants from the Bering Sea, not from southern waters as I had previously guessed. I sent a sample to a biologist at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo and he said it was a mature spring spawner. The historical capelin of this coast spawned in the fall. Only Bering Sea capelin spawn in the spring.

********************

As I mentioned in my last article, our community decided to appeal a pesticide application in a salmon river, the Kakweikan. Furthermore, we petitioned to make this area pesticide-free in the watersheds. The appeal lasted three days and was considered the most thoroughly researched pesticide appeal to date. The Sierra Legal Defense Fund helped us.

The forest company Interfor misrepresented the number of streams in the pesticide application program, which is a very serious mistake as the issue of water is the most important. Coho fry live in the tiniest of puddles connected to streams and these little bodies of water are not adequately buffered from pesticide application. When we took the pesticide-free zone concept to the Regional District we had 18 signatures (all the adults in Echo Bay), but we were told that was not adequate representation. The electoral population in the greater Area "A", as this place is called, is 1200. Today we have 1400 signatures. While we are waiting for the Board's decision, I'm trying to figure out what steps to take next. Meanwhile, if any of you find the need to appeal a pesticide permit, please write to me and I'll get you started . ...

********************

The other day I received a phone call from a 67 year-old Native chief on the Central Coast regarding the pesticide petition, and he broke my heart. He told me to give up, as the "coast is already dead". He said he's been watching it die for forty years.

I broke into sobs, embarrassing him and myself, because his words cut like a knife. I have always regretted that I wasn't here to see rivers swell with fish, whale pods that stretched to the horizon and water black with herring schools for as far as the eye could see. On the other hand, perhaps it's good I never saw those things. Just as a fresh runner grabs the baton in a relay race, those of us who are newer to the coast have fresh energy reserves to pick up and run with it.

Some days I lose hope, but I obviously don't know enough to give up all together. As for hope, I have another book for you to read. It is the sequel (in a sense) to Our Stolen Future (by Theo Colburn), called Conscious Evolution (New World Library), written by my mother, Barbara Marx Hubbard. What she has done is put these troubled times into perspective.

My mother is a deep thinker and keen observer of our species. Over the years I have often called her to ask why, again, I am supposed to have hope. This book is her answer.*

If you look at the history of this planet from its explosive beginnings and all that has gone on here from the first spark of life to the thoughts of humankind, it becomes clear we are attending our birth, not a death. But all births are dangerous and the outcome uncertain. Whether we can mid-wife ourselves into our next evolutionary phase remains to be seen.

Alexandra Morton is a marine mammal researcher and author living in BC's Broughton Archipelago, and a regular Wave-Length columnist

* See the Book Reviews for information on the book Conscious Evolution