Rolling back the years

The humpback is being hunted again.  There is a post here at the Mundane-SF blog and various news items. I may be divorced for this statement, but the two most memorable days of my life have been spent  watching humpbacks. 

The first was in a small boat outside of Glacier Bay in Alaska where we tracked a pod of humpbacks bubblenet feeding for hours. The next day we woke with  a curious individual checking out the boat.  Later, one breached while we were kayaking. No word of a lie although  it was a goodly sea-mile away. 

The second was on the cliffs of Quirpon Island (pronunced Karpoon) off northern Newfoundland just down the coast from Anse Aux Meadows. A pair of humpbacks shepherded - we think - a sickly calf around the bay.  It was late in the year and the rest of the pod had clearly moved on.  Forget what I said about divorce, on reflection I'm certain she would agree with me. I'm not claiming any grandiose spiritual experiences in their presence, just a simple engagement with nature and something bigger than myself. These are intelligent, social animals. To reduce them to food is bad enough, to reduce them to pawns in geopolitical nursery games is sickening, frankly.