The gray whale is one of the most ancient and mysterious of all the great whales. Its 10,000-mile West Coast migration tells a story of many worlds, human and cetacean - a living interspecies history. For 50 million years, these gray elders of all the whales have evolved alongside our shores and we are linked to these mammal kin by more than a shared history. Anatomically, there is a human equivalent for every bone in the gray whale's body - from fragile vestigial limbs invisible in the gray's mighty tale flukes to the delicate finger and hand skeletons inside each pectoral fin. Like hidden, mirror images, humans and gray whales reflect a larger story than science alone can tell. While Sightings looks at the past and the present events surrounding the gray whale, including recent hunting agreements, the authors also keep an eye to the future. Following the gray whale's monumental journey along the West Coast from Baja to Bering Sea, they tell the story not only of the whale but also of the people, both tribal, scientific researchers, everyday natural explorers and fishermen, and those small coastal communities whose lives are graced with and focused on the gray whale migration. Hogan's and Peterson's voices offer an insight into the current conflicts between Native peoples, businessmen, the tour industry, and environmentalists. The book includes the narrative retelling of dialogues with tribal leaders, hunters, scientists and communities, and the history of traditional whaling villages and what residents have observed in their many years of watching the gray whale. It will also describe the environment and lands along the migration - its sand, water, black rocks, the vegetation of the sea and other marine life - a story placed within the context of the whale's environment.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
The gray whale is probably the most watched of all the whales as their yearly migration along the Pacific coast brings them close to the many watchers on shore and in boats. Peterson, a nature writer, and Hogan, a Native American poet, spent seven years following the whales' migration and talking with people affected by the whales. The two voices of the authors are rendered in different type, with Hogan's more philosophical musing on the relationship between human and whale juxtaposed with Peterson's more reporterly presentation of gray whale natural history and of the people who interact with them. Starting with a visit to the calving grounds in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja California, the authors socialize with the whales known as "friendlies" because they choose to approach people. Other sections follow the migration, showcase differing viewpoints on the Makah tribe's renewed hunting of whales and on aboriginal whaling in general, and discuss the summer home of the gray whales in the Arctic seas, where the whales feast and grow fat for their return journey south. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This splendid book is aptly named, for the powerful glimpses in these chapters, full of emotion and drama, carry the resonance and significance of a sighting of the heart-shaped breath plume and knuckled back of one of the largest, gentlest, and most enigmatic creatures on the planet.
Sightings is beautiful reading. Each of the short chapters is rich as a poem, and indeed, many read like song or poetry, each woman's distinctive voice blending and harmonizing with her co-author's.
This book is not the standard National Geographic fare--though the authors are skilled reporters and intrepid travellers, following the whales in kayaks, small planes, boats and ferries. Theirs are the sightings of writers who don't merely observe, but who feel their subjects and feel them deeply, who use their intuitions and emotions as well as their intellects to come to their powerful conclusion: that, in this era of mass extinction, to kill such a creature as the gray whale is "an act against creation."
How lucky are we that these talented, spirited women have written this compelling and important testament to that truth.
Sightings is beautiful reading. Each of the short chapters is rich as a poem, and indeed, many read like song or poetry, each woman's distinctive voice blending and harmonizing with her co-author's.
This book is not the standard National Geographic fare--though the authors are skilled reporters and intrepid travellers, following the whales in kayaks, small planes, boats and ferries. Theirs are the sightings of writers who don't merely observe, but who feel their subjects and feel them deeply, who use their intuitions and emotions as well as their intellects to come to their powerful conclusion: that, in this era of mass extinction, to kill such a creature as the gray whale is "an act against creation."
How lucky are we that these talented, spirited women have written this compelling and important testament to that truth.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
SIGHTINGS is an incredible book to read on the plight of Gray Whales. Although I started reading SIGHTINGS the last day on a cruise ship in Cabos, (literally, moments after photographing a large pod of dolphins leaping out of the ship's wake)... my husband and I even skipped meals because I could not pull my head up from non-stop reading of this fine book. Linda Hogan's proses through a Native American's eyes were very beautiful and insightful... Brenda Peterson pucked my heartstrings with her naturalist perspective for this amazing mammal's plight and journeys through an OCEANPLANET, all the while a majority of humankind believes it owns it, yet refuses to accept responsibility for what befalls this watery world's consequence. I encourage all to read this book... its pages will open your eyes and one will not be dissappointed. Several years ago, I was one of many that wrote letters to the Mexican Government concerning St. Ignacia's breeding grounds of the great Gray Whale. The book finally told me of the outcome. When I am sailing on my boat named Rumbledoll in Neah Bay, WA this summer, or in Mexico next year, I will be searching for Gray Whales and their children... with a renewed hope of their perservation for many milleniums to come.
Jadia Ward/Bright Eyes Creations
Jadia Ward/Bright Eyes Creations
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By srvivr2
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just finished this book today. If you are at all interested in whales, their history and their natural mystery than this book is for you.
I plan to go to San Ignacio Lagoon February 2011 on a Baja Expedition.
People in this book have done this expedition themselves and explain what they experienced. I can't wait!!!
I plan to go to San Ignacio Lagoon February 2011 on a Baja Expedition.
People in this book have done this expedition themselves and explain what they experienced. I can't wait!!!
By W. Lowe
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have read many books on whales over the course of my lifetime but I have never been so inspired by any book as much as I have from reading "Sightings". The book brings out the whales relationship with mankind. The qualities demonstrated by both are compassion and understanding and love. These qualities are perhaps the only qualities worth acquiring in life because they are the only qualities that not be destroyed by death. The murder of innocence or the rescue of it are the two sides of mankind that are brought out in these pages of events. This is a must read for those needing the courage to continue onward towards eventual reconciliation of intelligent souls.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book, along with Serge Dedina's Saving the Gray Whale: People, Politics,and Conservation in Baja California, is required reading for anyone who plans a whale watching trip in Baja.
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