Ice Whale
By: Jean Craighead George / Narrated By: Christina Moore
Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
Sort of uneven, kinda depressing, ultimately hopeful. But ALWAYS a solid and wonderful look at Nature and Animals of Feeling
Nope, Jean Craighead George is nowhere neeeeeear Native American, but her tales for young (And old alike!) are always soooo respectful and encourage the reader to live outside the mind and to embrace and join nature. Ice Whale, started by George then finished by her son and published after her death, has some of her most uneven writing but is so gosh darned good. ‘Twas a delight, I tell you. And after listening to several audiobooks on war in preparation for Veterans Day 2020, it was suuuuuch a relief. EsPECially as the story progressed.
The story opens with young Toozak being on the water at the exact moment an ice whale is born. The youngun explodes from his mother, a patch of white (Shaped like an Eskimo dancing) on his chin. It’s a sign that Toozak has been blessed by the gods to see something this fine, so rare, so precious and wonderful. Ten years later, however, young man Toozak inadvertently, in an act of momentary pride, discloses his people’s location to find whales. He accepts beads and tobacco, smugly thinking he’s outwitted the whalers, only to see the whaling vessel heading to the area he physically gestured to. All the whales are slaughtered, and Toozak, feeling horribly sick, seeks the village shaman to discover his fate. The gods are angry, and Toozak and his descendants are cursed, and it is their lot to do the one thing they can: Keep that whale with the dancing Eskimo safe, as long as the whale shall live.
Which is where we get into the uneven writing. Cuz the whale Siku lives a looooong time, and we don’t get to know all the Toozaks as time progresses. Mostly, we get to know eras and the passage of time and customs. The village falls away into decay and modernity encroaches, bringing white men and “civilization”. We only know a few Toozaks as they navigate the changing times, plus we’re introduced to the Boyds, a white whaling family. It’s not until we get into 1980 (Things start in 1848), that we get to know Emily Toozak. There we’re given her story as she gets lost after being separated whilst on a Siku-sighting journey. She takes in Siku’s spirit, and uses him to get in touch with the stories generations have handed down, about how to get along with nature, how to survive in the world.
The story’s strength comes with Siku as he gets along in the waters that are changing. It’s the MOST distressing listening, lemme tell you. He can’t eat crill as it’s despoiled by oil slicks. Sonic booms in the water from vessels sounding to start offshore drilling drive Siku and the other whales almost insane (And in the case of one very old whale, it does indeed drive him over the edge). Whereas Siku’s early life was peopled with all manner of whale species/families, all manner of marine life, time and the despoiling of habitat and hunting drive all to the brink of extinction. The story goes all the way to 2048, and it’s a verrrrrry hopeful glimpse into the future, a future that quite frankly I’M NOT expecting. But in a Kids Book, hey! ya can’t leave ‘em weeping with reality, can you? Besides which, that’s not Jean Craighead George’s style. And I can only surmise, given the post script by her son, that he worked with her on it, read her drafts, and he knew exactly how she wanted it to end.
I see the audiobook is rated rather poorly (Not at all on audiobooks.com where I got it/3.7 stars on Audible). I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s due to what is the production’s shining achievement. Apparently in the written form, George created a system of symbols she used when Siku and the whales were speaking/communicating to each other. The symbols don’t crossover to audio, so the producers were euphoric to announce that they’d be using actual recordings of whales. This is AWEsome! …until it isn’t… oh say when the first whale screeeeeeched an alarm to others that danger was nearby… and all of my cats shot out of their beds and went to hide behind the refrigerator and in the bathtub. Apparently, whales in distress cause cats in distress. I doooo applaud the ingenuity of the producers, and I heartily embrace whale recordings, it’s just that it’s all pretty gosh danged shrill to the ear.
So there’s that.
Fortunately, there’s also Christina Moore. She knocks this outta the park, I tell you! Not only does she manage to convey the passing of time with its many Toozaks coming and going, she differentiates between each Toozak as a youngster and as they pass into their elder years. I especially liked her performance of Emily Toozak, and indeed her depiction of the story’s final Toozak, a male who is part of a scientific expedition and who amazes and delights other scientists when he can say, without a doubt, his ancestors KNOW Siku, have the day of Siku’s birth chronicled.
Not the best of her books, nope. But certainly a gem. And whilst my ears did bleed from whale screeching, my soul its very self took flight and soared to listen to genuine recordings of whales in the wild.
So there’s that too!!!
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