I was watching a handful of Right Whales last week in their element not a half-mile out off the golden sands of Provincetown. They are the last of an ancient and dying species. It was a glorious sight to see them feed. After having nearly decimated them, the Yankee race might do something to ensure they survive, I thought. Do the right thing: show them some much deserved courtesy, forbid fishing where it might endanger them, and make ships slow to 10 knots in areas where whales are feeding or calving. Sounds reasonable? Well, somebody wants to put a stop to that.

It turns out the ubiquitous vice president has successfully delayed a ruling that would make ships slow down slightly to avoid killing or maiming these animals. Again, there are “questions” about the scientific findings supporting a ban, just as there are “doubts” about climate change.

Political hacks dictating scientific rules instead of the other way around is nothing new. There was a time not long ago when Joseph Stalin insisted on imposing a bizarre and discredited genetic theory called Lysenkoism on his country. Dissenters, who happened to be right, faced Siberia. In America, the martyrs of scientific truth simply get fired from their jobs or ignored.

Not content in destroying the salmon population, a tentacle of Cheney or one his proxies now moves to intervene on the behalf of God knows what special interest that has some sort of bizarre justification to kill off another species. There is nothing much to say about this—it speaks for itself.

One shouldn’t be surprised. This “administration” has spent seven years effectively and joyously conducting an active war on the environment and successfully been killing off as many natural resources as it could get its hands on. (Well, all right, it did designate sections of Hawaii as a marine sanctuary—which, if we take the abuse of Stellwagen bank as an example, is fairly meaningless.) Then again, one asks, could it at least once do something, even by accident, that is decent for the treasures given to us by God as his custodians?

Nothing makes everyone into a child better than a whale. That was evident on Sunday when I embarked with my wife and friend on a whale-watching voyage out of Provincetown. Of course Provincetown itself was once a minor whaling port, specializing in six-month plum pudding voyages hunting sperm whales in the North Atlantic. Today, we were pursuing whaling’s logical and preferable successor, whale watching.

“P-Town,” as the locals call it, is interesting to say the least. It’s evolved into a raucous tourist town favored by free spirits and eccentrics. Unlike some other whaling ports, such as New Bedford and New London, it never turned to manufacturing to compensate for the loss of whaling. It stuck with fishing and tourism and it’s quite a success.

I had heard that there were pods of North Atlantic right whales in abundance around Provincetown, and I wanted to add that particular view to my collection of whale-sights. I’d seen the minke, the beluga, the blue, the finback, and humpback—it was time for me to acquire a visual snapshot of the right for my private mental collection. Regrettably, although a threat to no one, the right is highly endangered: The old Yankees who hunted them to near oblivion over a century ago proved just how well they could do a job. Their skills built-or destroyed-a thing to last.

It was an ideal day to watch cetaceans. The weather was clear, bright and cool; the water inviting, but the breeze that kept gusting onshore made the notion of kayaking problematic, even in Provincetown’s sheltered harbor. We were fortunate to see a few rights feeding just off the bare golden beach near Race Point. If they were the right whale to kill (slow moving and able to float after being killed) they were the right whale to watch, too, hovering near the surface long so we could get a good view of them.

Further out towards Stellwagen Bank we saw more whales, 25 or so, humpback, feeding, diving, flukes up, gulls everywhere crying and looking to get their scraps. The awe of the whale—the hand of god, as it were—made mouths on board, children and open in wonder.

The sighs of the crowd, the way the passengers and viewers ran one side of the boat to the other to see whales—it made one feel humble and part of a large collaboration. If more people see whales, the less chance they’ll stand by to see them hunted to extinction.

It’s been a couple of months of travel all over New England for anyone who cares enough to follow this humble blog. Last weekend I attempted to reach Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. The mountain is a mankiller, once feared by the local Native Americans and for good reason. Given the 100 degree winds, mounds of snow, and uncertain avalanche conditions prevailing, we elected not to go into the bowl itself.

The walk up to it alone was murder, lugging skis and boots. My companion had brought too much beer, and so was slowed even further. Climbing up, caught between an all too bright sun, the reflection of the snow underfoot, the dizziness, the drifting thoughts…the experience seemed like a dream. In that bright world where light is cleaner and stronger, and the sun hammers down on your head and burns your eyes, and the snow underfoot provides an anvil, life is more real. It’s only you and the pain keeping you close company and verifying your existence and nothing much more. Sometimes, you feel ready to pass out or fall over the edge of the trail, and you can’t go on anymore; and then suddenly you are walking comfortably, strutting even, at the base cabin of the ravine, surrounded by fellow hikers and adventurers.

The way down was fun at first–but cross country skis weren’t the ideal means of taking the ski trail down. It was a mix of skiing, walking, sliding on my rump, and making a slow descent.

I had been outclassed by the mountain, but I’ll be back.

Looking at all the glorious snow that has been falling it feels as if I’ve gotten my Christmas present. Heaven, to me, is being out in the woods in a place like the Berkshires (preferably the Bash Bish Falls), hearing the wind moaning through bare branches, walking over a mound of ice frozen on a slope, and watching the snow fall here and into the infinite-seeming space behind me into guts of the country.

I was just at the Weston ski track outside Boston, skiing at night as the snow fell. It was so much fun I felt like one of the young kids there zipping neatly by me on while skate-skiing. So, it grieves me to think whale oil’s successor, petroleum, is turning up the global furnace and risks denying me this delightful, glorious, bleak season.

But for now, here we are with lots of snow. With the usual wobbly unpredictability of the region (and global warming), we’re due for rain, as those secular prophets, the weathermen, tell us. That will ruin all that lovely snow. Hopefully, they’ll prove to be as reliable as religious prophets and we’ll keep our snow. I want to reach to those white mounds and protect them, cover them all over and hide them from the rain, the way a farmer would his beloved crops when threatened with hail.

Obviously, that’s not going to happen. Instead, maybe I’ll just renew my memberships in the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.

San Francisco–the name speaks for itself. A city that collapses together romance, wildness, hippies (more imagined than real today), misty mornings, gold rushes and the great attached Bay. Not to mention far too many homeless people. And, just now, an ecological disaster, thanks to a misguided oil tanker. I was there recently, and ran from Fourth Street along Market to the Embarcadero. Yes, I ran. When in the City of St. Francis, I usually run–or walk as fast as possible with my face fixed straight ahead–it denies the homeless panhandlers the opportunity to beg. (There should be no homeless people in America, so I pretend they don’t exist, unless they have pets, and then I give them money.)

I reached the harbor’s edge, the water lapping near the beautiful symmetrical Ferry building, always perfect in its clean lines. The beautiful sunshine of the day–a type of gold, really, to match California’s fabled yellow sands–belied the grimness of what had happened down at the Golden Gate. The bay, with its ecological richness, was now threatened with oil spillage. From where I was, looking out to the eastern bluffs across the water, the Golden Gate was obscured, and the bay was serene. There was just a bit of mist hanging past the Bay Bridge where more oil tankers lay with their deadly cargo. The colors of the palette were as vivid as always, the gray-green of the water contrasting with the olive cliffs across the bay. In short, the Bay had the typical unreal too-beautiful-to-exist-look. Keeping things ever more serious, there were prohibition signs posted everywhere, almost ridiculous-looking, showing figures of what was banned in red, such as no fishing or swimming. The gulls wailed as always, as if regretting the poisoning of the water, but now I’m waxing poetic.

Beyond the inconvenience of the spillage (a local saloon owner angrily told me he couldn’t go swimming; I commiserated, of course, as we were both from Dorchester) there was a much bigger problem. And one that is with us all. As petroleum killed off Yankee whaling, which was a good thing, it has the potential to kill this harbor and, directly or otherwise, every other thing on the planet.

No one admires the old Yankee (and other assorted ethnic) whalers like I do.

If I hadn’t, I couldn’t have written the book I did. I spent seven years virtually living with them while researching and writing The Lost Fleet. Many of these blubber hunters, as they were called–captains, mates, harpooners, and crewmen alike–were very great mariners and lived like heroes from Homer and overcame corresponding challenges. They had great skills in navigation and seamanship in both small boats and in large square-riggers, and courage.

They had to be both accomplished mariners and whale hunters, two not necessarily allied skills. Each time a whaleboat crew lowered, it was by no means assured if the whale or his hunters would survive the day. I’ve seen whales up fairly close, both from boats and kayaks. They are huge and gentle, even polite giants–but when attacked can be very lethal opponents. Understandably, the hunt was a rather tense experience. Using ancient weapons against an ancient enemy, the whale hunter in his boat experienced the giddy joy, camaraderie and horror of sharing great danger with five other on whom, literally, his life depended .

They were admirably, even enviably tough. They all had to suffer bad food and water, the cramped hell that was the forecastle, the hard work in the rigging in storm or calm. They performed their own crude surgeries. One Nantucket master with a crushed leg supervised the amputation of the limb himself. Another whaler from Martha’s Vineyard, having a block fall on his foot, cut the toe off before the pain set in. They also left behind art–scrimshaw and songs, to name a couple of varieties. If we evaluate a society by its arts, the whalers appear in not so bad a light. They have also left us with great and grand stories–the Essex to name just one. And they, more than any other type of explorer or mariner, typified the romantic traveler who cruises in all the world’s seas, mixing with assorted brown, red, yellow and even white natives (not necessarily to the aboriginals’ benefit), and seeing many indescribable sights.

Also, from the pragmatic point of view, the whalers were providing things people wanted or needed. They lived in a time when there were no reliable illuminants. It’s hard to imagine the need they filled. We can manufacture light now with the flip of the switch. There were no plastics or springs or lubricants to ease our lives or oil our machines. The notion of animal rights–aquatic mammals included, was virtually non-existent. A choice between a human comfort and the life of the monster of the deep was no choice at all.

But, having studied this gritty breed of men (and women), I also realize they were exterminating an intelligent form of life that has as much a right to exist and be left alone as we. I’ve seen humpback whales breach and play and hunt in groups and have a love and respect for them that borders on a passion: give me a whale over a human any day. As a New Englander, all I need to do is look just off the coast to see the effect of these brave, capable and greedy mariners. Our right whale population is still hovering near extinction. The sperm was driven away or decimated. Off California, they nearly exterminated the gray whale. Looking north to Alaska, the bowhead whale has been driven to dangerously low numbers. (We’ll skip the outrageous successes of the Scandinavian, Japanese and Soviet whaling fleets on the fin whales for now.)

Which brings me to my last point about what I like about the old Yankee whalers–they no longer exist. They’ve gone off and retired. They remain only in stories. All I that I can say about the monstrosity that is modern whaling is that it’s an industry as brutal as it is pointless. The enterprise, to the degree that it’s practiced by a very cynical Japan, Norway and Russia, has none of the romance of Yankee whaling–to the degree there was any–to redeem it. The whales they kill have no chance of fighting back. The automation of the killing is near complete. It’s devoid of courage or skill and ugly.

Killing whales now–for any purpose–subsistence or commercial, is a needless exercise. Commercially, it’s bad business and bad ethics. And, as has been observed before–there’s more profit and downright goodwill in being paid to take people out to watch a whale in his watery home rather than destroying him. If the shrewd and money wise Yankee whalers had been able to make a buck taking people out in whaleboats to observe whales, they would have done it, and skipped the rest of the brutal job.

Good news on New Bedford’s waterfront–we hope.  The Boston Globe reports the city is launching a $40 million project to develop its side of the Acushnet River–part of this also means transplanting the high-end sport of rowing to the city. That might seem to be a bit of a stretch for a working class municipality like New Bedford.  But, nevertheless,  anything that rehabilitates that dirty waterway and makes use of it for something besides dumping poisonous chemicals is welcome. Too bad so little was known about the nature of PCBs when 50 years ago companies dumped them routinely into the river. The evil the companies do oft lives behind them!

The dredging that is expected to purify the harbor is expected to take something about as long as it took to pollute the river itself–25 years. But hopefully this task might be sped up a bit.
 
The waterfront€¦.as for that, during my research for the €œLost Fleet€ I’ve often walked along it, regretting that so many of the old wharves had been leveled for massive inelegant marinas, processing plants and warehouses to take their place. This isn’t to say those facilities don’t have their uses–but a quick comparison with Gloucester harbor, that most eminent of tourist destinations, shows how you can have massive block-shaped  industrial-Transylvania style architecture along with a beautiful harbor walk and waterfront. A place that people might want to swim in–or dip their toes in–at least.  

Nevertheless, I was recently down on the New Bedford waterfront for a festival. Just getting to the Acushnet’s edge from the downtown requires taking the labyrinthine pedestrian walkway over busy Route 18, that is, if you don’t want to wait at a light at street level and run across as fast as you can before the light changes. Sometimes, off-season, the harbor front can be an intimidating place, with rusty boats tied up and rocking and squealing with protest at the rise and fall of water. The smell of chemicals and rust hangs in the air; empty and abandoned appearing fishing craft can make you feel desperately lonely.  

But, this September event showed a far different side to the docks. It was a busy lively affair, like a crashed bee-hive, and it was crowded with people, families, entertainers, singers, vendors, and yes, even writers such as myself.  It was a dry pleasant day, with the sound of the gulls, the buzz of the multitudes and the harmony of singers filling the ears and the pungent smell of sea water and fried grease in the nostrils.   

Despite its industrial grittiness and the rusty and rocking scallop boats tied up nearby, it was fun to be there. Fishing, though endangered, is still practiced with gusto. The scallop-shucking contest held near Merrill’s Wharf  (where the last of the old whaling counting houses is preserved, that of Jonathan Bourne) was a dark simple joy to behold, an authentic-feeling piece of New England ritual. Shucking is something of an art–it requires the insertion of a knife into the scallop’s side before opening the shell. The shucker slides the knife gently under the fleshy section before freeing the white meat. The shell and the rest of the dark flesh are dumped, and the treasured white meat is now liberated for human consumption. A row of four fishermen in rubber gloves stood on a stage shucking away as if their lives depended on it.  A crowd of 100 or more cheered them on as if they were rock stars. The scallopers ranged in height in build, from thick and heavyset to rangy and wiry, but they all were very intent on what they were doing. 

€œLemme see what you got!€ cried one man on the sidelines. €œLemme see what you got!€  A man onstage with the shuckers was armed with a microphone and yelled out comments like a carnival barker, commenting on the progress of each contestant. The assembled audience was passionate about the whole contest–the ability to shuck clearly matters in this town. The winner, it was reported, dispatched of 100 scallops in 4 minutes 34 seconds. 

 Sadly, watching the ritual, so exuberant, so vital-seeming, I also realized that this was the sort of event that has probably happened on this waterfront over and over again over centuries. The various rituals are altered with each type of fish being pursued–whale, cod, halibut, etc.  Each generation of mariners and fishermen had some sort of contest to celebrate for fun what they did to secure their food. There were whaleboat races once in New Bedford harbor, a ritual that vanished with the hunt of the whales themselves.  

Scalloping itself has a dim future–the local press indicates that scallops are over-fished, affected by pollution, facing loss of habitat, etc. We’ve heard this story over and over again. I had a sense the shucking contest would prove to be a snapshot in time that future generations will look back on nostalgically.  

But this takes me back to the rowing project proposed for the waterfront. The future may be gloomy for the ever dangerous and precarious fishing industry but, already, some wiser heads are prevailing to assist the city to reinvent itself using as an engine its great sustaining heart–the slow-moving green waters of the Acushnet.  Business enterprise (or capitalism if you will, to use an oversimplified concept) ever pushes and smashes and rebuilds everything that falls in its embrace. It’s time to repay the Acushnet by cleaning it up and making it presentable again.  I look forward to that new waterfront and launching my kayak in it–one new recreational mariner following in the wake of so many, many great men and women.

Dear visitor and (potential) reader, welcome to my site and my blog.

This is the belated first of what I hope to be many entries commenting on whales, whaling, and literary and environmental issues. I invite interested parties to join in and send me e-mails and links and help generate an exciting dialog.

A few words of introduction. What began as a fascination for kayaking around and watching whales has now blossomed into a 400 plus page book. The Lost Fleet represents the end of a long personal journey, some seven years in duration, and it is with both regret and delight I put the book at the disposal of the reading public. Any book of this size is both a companion and drag to the writer trying to complete it. The book stays fixed in his mind day and night: It is both his gloomiest damnation and his most blissful redemption. Sometimes it seems as if he cannot go any further, that the next word is like a dollar to be hoarded, and the enterprise is unendurable. The next moment, he is spinning out his yarn with ease and it seems as if he can go forever and never wants the joy of the story-telling to end. The experience, I believe, is similar to hanging on to a pendulum that swings with no particular rhythm from heaven to hell. It took me about twice as long as the average whaling voyage to finish this–but, in any case, the book is done.

In the story, we follow Thomas and Eliza from their youths in Connecticut where they met and fell in love and married, all through their voyages together, the births and deaths of their children, to the end of Yankee whaling. I was a greenhorn when I started, but now feel as if I were an old salt. I’ve learned that the Yankee whalers–and the other mariners, Hawaiians, Cape Verdeans, Azoreans, Africans, to name a few others who sailed with them–were a different breed of men and women. Stronger, tougher, and much less dependent on technology, what they lacked by way of electricity and communications gadgets and tools they compensated for with brawn, skill, and sheer courage. Every day they performed great tasks with both boldness and skill to survive on that most inhospitable of environments, the ocean that wraps the planet in its wet and life-sustaining girdle.

These men and women, heroes and heroines in so many ways, lived life more intensely and vividly than we do. Their lives were shorter than ours, and they were less addicted to enervating and superfluous luxuries such as cars and dishwashers. They lacked the electronic-powered entertainments that have distributed junk songs and movies en masse to reshape our minds into those of illiterate idiots. When they spoke, they had a pure clean nautically-flavored English that in its own simple way is as beautiful and expressive as the finest poetry. They could mean just what they said in a way that seems impossible now, our vocabularies are so polluted with sports junk, and empty near-meaningless phrases.

Their lives were mini-epics. Whaling men survived for months if not years alone on the sea, killing whales, fighting bad weather, running from pirates, and sailing ever onwards to fill their holds. They even performed their own surgeries–one tough master from Nantucket supervised the amputation of his own leg without anesthetics of antibiotics. I’ve developed a great reverence for the Old Yankee Whalers and what they achieved–both good and bad. Our oceans, scoured of several species of whales, is a testimony to their prowess.

In this story, we visit the major whaling ports of the 19^th century: New Bedford, a rich gem of a city, then as now, working for a living from the ocean; and Nantucket, the small sandy island doomed to decay and reinvention as a refuge for the rich. We sojourn to rowdy and expanding San Francisco and Honolulu, and to Japan, Siberia, and Alaska, and many other places. Major figures of history step in: Raphael Semmes, Jefferson Davis, Frederick Douglass, Gideon Welles, and more. We see men and whales killed, fortunes made and lost, ships wrecked, the twists and turns of nature, human treachery and faithfulness. Above all, we get to know a man and woman and their enduring love over decades oceans and continents.

Thanks for your indulgence. I extend to you my warmest invitation to take a voyage on the pages of the Lost Fleet and be as thrilled, amazed and amused as I was. I only hope you enjoy reading this book half as much as I enjoyed writing it. Part of me remains with the Williamses in their century, on their ship, and absorbed in their story.