Big Miracle

by Tom Rose

  The ice we relied on for access to the whales was the very element that imprisoned them. But as they were boldly making clear, it wouldn’t imprison them for long. Just a few hours before Arctic darkness would descend upon them on Wednesday, October 25, the two whales seemed to sense that it might be their last day of captivity. The Eskimos were opening holes at breakneck speed just to keep pace with the frenzied whales. Led by Siku, the larger of the two, the leviathans were trying to surface in new holes before they were finished. The whales were so persistent, they were sticking their vulnerable heads within inches of the lethal chain saws.

  Malik was forced to take steps to prevent an accidental slashing. Such a catastrophe would have been particularly tragic now that the whales were so close to freedom. He split his twelve-man crew in half. The lead group cut the outline of a hole with their chain saws and moved on to mark off the next one. Meanwhile, the second crew worked on the first hole, pushing the giant blocks of ice under the rim of the hole allowing the anxious whales to surface. Instead of colliding with a deadly chain saw, the worst the whales would bump into was an aluminum seal pole.

  It was all they could do to stay in the holes. Geoff and Craig were convinced the whales could see the path to the lead. Hundreds of people piled aboard trucks and snowmobiles. They raced beyond the end of the trail of ice holes to the edge of the Soviet-cut channel. For everyone involved in the nearly two-week-old ordeal, the final hour seemed at hand. Since he was instructed by his assignment desk to “get the whales swimming free,” British photographer Charles Laurence humorously described the various possible scenarios. Would the whales pound their flukes with added vigor as their bodies glided across a marked plane separating entrapment from freedom? Or, as a cartoon in the Richmond Times Dispatch amusingly suggested, once they were free, would the whales mischievously beach themselves just to drive us all crazy?

  On the two previous occasions when actual news did develop—the deicers luring the whales into the first new holes and Bone’s death—there were no cameras on hand. But this time was different. The whales were about to swim free, a most difficult moment to capture for sure, but nonetheless the reason we were all there. Our job was to record—in words, pictures, and sound—the liberation of the stranded whales as best we could.

  But by early Tuesday evening, the ice, which had proved so reliable, was starting to show strain. Large structural cracks were found leading from the breaker channels all the way to the whales. The stress of all the weight the ice was forced to support was proving more than it could safely handle. The ice was starting to break. The risks were presented in no uncertain terms. The more people and equipment that stood atop it, the greater the likelihood the ice would collapse. Those of us who entrusted our lives to the durable ice required no further elaboration. While the ominous news did not keep us away, it tempered almost everyone’s enthusiasm.

  Everyone, that is, except my cameraman, Steve Mongeau. A few minutes past midnight on Wednesday morning, long after the rest of us were fast asleep, Mongeau casually told our host, Rod Benson, that he was going to drive out to check on the Russians. Before Rod could warn him about driving out on the fractured ice, Mongeau was gone. Thinking that the special barricades put up to limit access to the ice would be unmanned at such a late hour, Mongeau figured this might be his last chance to take his camera far out on the ice without being hassled.

  Driving alone and without a weapon to protect against bears, several more of which were spotted earlier that day, Mongeau headed out past NARL, and around the gravel cul-de-sac. At the roundabout’s far end, he plunged over the frozen dirt abutment and onto Elson Lagoon, the most heavily traveled ice road to the whales. Four rescuers tending the whales watched the rapid approach of Mongeau’s vehicle with alarm. The closer Mongeau got, the faster he seemed to be going. By design, he was driving straight toward the open water channel, but if he didn’t slow down soon, he would fatally plow straight into it.

  Cindy looked on in shocked disbelief as Mongeau drove right past her. When the channel finally came into view, he knew that the worst thing he could do was slam on the breaks. If he did, the truck would skid uncontrollably. Instead, he deftly swerved the truck away from Cindy and the open water channel. When the truck spun to a stop and she was satisfied the driver was safe, Cindy’s fear turned to fury. She ran over to confront whoever was reckless enough to nearly kill himself and four innocent bystanders.

  “There are no vehicles allowed on the ice,” she barked. “What’s your name? I’m going to report you.”

  “To who?” Mongeau answered in jest. “The Russians, or the Americans?”

  Mongeau knew he had driven carelessly and wasn’t about to deny it. But to get kicked off the ice would spoil his one chance to get night video of the icebreakers. If he picked a fight with Cindy, he knew he would lose. He tried the best tactic he knew: his skillful look of youthful innocence. He tucked his beardless chin into his chest and pretended to reach for words that wouldn’t come out.

  “Look, I’m reeeelly soooory,” he added, intentionally emphasizing his thick Canadian accent. “I’m just out here to take pictures. It’s my job. I promise to be more careful.” After ten long days of dealing with insatiable egos, Mongeau’s apparently genuine contrition reaffirmed her faith in the human species. Her anger quickly turned to solicitude. She wasn’t a policeman, she confided, so she couldn’t stop him, but she warned him not to go any further out.

  “It’s for your own safety,” she added for emphasis. With that, Mongeau drove away. But to Cindy’s astonishment, he was heading straight for the dangerous ice she had just warned him to avoid.

  “This guy’s out of his mind,” she said to Craig. “He’s trying to kill himself.” Far from it. He was just a gutsy twenty-year-old kid out to prove himself. He was determined to show that he had the right stuff to make it as a network cameraman. That required the willingness to take risks that could cost him his life. This assignment was his first big chance. It was an opportunity other young cameramen could only dream of. This was the fish he wouldn’t let get away. Since arriving in Barrow, Mongeau had already risked his life hanging out of helicopters and chasing polar bears. So far it had paid off handsomely. Lots of his video had already aired in Japan and on several NBC News broadcasts. But the coup he would savor most lay just moments ahead.

  Before retiring for the night, Sergei Reshetov agreed to keep his icebreaker away from the whales. Moscow promised he would only have to work one day for the Americans. One had already stretched into three. Reshetov and his tired crew were desperate to get home. So far, only the Arseniev had been cutting ice. The water was thought too shallow and dangerous for the larger icebreaker, which sat anchored and unused in the waters off the pressure ridge. But Master Reshetov was growing impatient.

  When the Arseniev first sliced through the outside of the ridge, Reshetov asked the Americans for permission to bring his ship all the way to the holes. He was confident enough in his ships’ sonar depth readings to risk traversing the shallow waters. The Arseniev could crush in an hour what would take the Eskimos another two days to cut through. But the Americans said no. Not so much for the shallow waters, but for the safety of the whales. Cindy and Arnold worried that the whales would be too frightened to enter the breaker channels and perhaps even retreat into older breathing holes.

  Reshetov was tired of relying on the Americans. While he wanted the whales freed, he also wanted to go home. He waited until he thought everyone had cleared the ice. At just past 3 A.M., Wednesday, October 26, nineteen days after the whales were first discovered, Master Sergei Reshetov ordered the Vladimir Arseniev’s helmsman to propel the massive ship forward in a bold, headlong dash toward the whales.

  But before issuing the controversial command, Reshetov weighed the risks. He knew he was about to violate standing orders from the Americans not to come too close to the whales. He also knew that the closer his ship could get, the less distance the Eskimos would need to cover with their
chain saws. If he got too close to the whales, he ran the risk of running them over. He also realized he was giving the Americans no warning of his daring plan.

  What the Soviet captain did not know was that a young Canadian cameraman was alone on the ice that cold dark night on an intuitive hunch that something newsworthy might happen. The Canuck photographer’s hunch paid off. His was the only camera to capture Reshetov’s intrepid adventure. Ignoring rumbling warnings from the shaking frozen floor beneath him, Mongeau got out and walked to within yards of the ship’s massive hull. He captured from remarkably close range the powerful sights and grinding sounds of the icebreaker’s overwhelming force as it crushed its way toward the stranded whales.

  His next shots were among the best of the entire rescue. Lying prone with his camera right down on the ice, Mongeau framed a shot of the two gray whales surfacing frantically in the foreground while the daunting bow of the massive icebreaker loomed dramatically in the background. For the first time since the American public became obsessed with them almost two weeks earlier, the trapped mammals looked tiny. Compared to the monstrous vessel towering right over them, they were. Slipping perilously down a rocking ice floe knee deep into the frigid water, Mongeau was shaken enough not to further press his luck.

  23

  Free at Last

  First light Wednesday morning revealed icebreaker channels just 400 yards from the two surviving whales. If anybody had questions as to how it happened, they could ask Steve Mongeau. He had the only footage. With cunning, poise, and talent, the twenty-year-old Canadian had more than proved he belonged in this business. He had the stuff. Morris never mentioned the violation to Reshetov. The Russian captain’s aggressive icebreaking brought the whales closer than ever to freedom and with no apparent damage.

  The excitement sparked by the pre-dawn developments was palpable all over town. Barrow took on a festive air. The whales would soon be free, and Operation Breakout over. But before it ended, Barrowans wanted to savor their glory. Residents no longer seemed frightened or unsure of all the visitors. They became more friendly, grateful their forced hospitality was only a temporary condition. Businesses closed down. The North Slope Borough Government office, the biggest business of them all, took the afternoon off. For the first time since the rescue began, classes were dismissed early. Word spread that the whales would be free by nightfall.

  Local teachers acquiesced when the students clambered for one last chance to see the creatures that helped put their tiny village on the map. By the hundreds, Barrowans, young and old, went to bid the whales farewell. But once they got there, they seemed more fascinated by the media than by the cetacean duo. After all, whales were much more common. They saw them all the time and ate their meat at every meal. By mid-afternoon, the line of parked vehicles along the ice looked like a misplaced crowd awaiting a space shuttle launch off Cape Canaveral. Dozens of pickup trucks, vans and cars sat with engines idling, Eskimos chattering animatedly in their native Inupiat. Suddenly and without warning, Siku, the larger of the two surviving whales, vanished.

  Poutu, the other whale continued to surface normally in the last hole. Malik and Arnold were stumped. Unlike Bone, who vanished under the ice five days earlier, Siku was the strongest and most vibrant of the three whales. The instant Siku was discovered missing, Malik knew something significant was about to happen. Without explanation to others around him, his dark Eskimo face beamed with a new revelation. He dropped his seal pole and lumbered to the icebreaker’s channel just a few hundred yards away. Craig looked at Arnold as if pleading for an explanation. At the same instant, they dropped their poles and raced to Malik. They simultaneously figured out what he was doing. He was waiting for Siku to pop his head through the ice-littered channel.

  If Siku did appear in the channel, he might not be so easy to see. The channel was six miles long and up to a quarter mile wide. But of one thing Malik was almost certain. Siku must be somewhere in the channel. Malik yanked down on the bill of his bright red baseball cap in a nervous habit acquired over five decades of whaling. As he scanned the water for a sign of the missing whale, he held up a thickly calloused hand to further shield his eyes against the blinding glare of the daylight bouncing off the Arctic ice. Through the sharp ice shards floating in the man-made channel, Siku’s head appeared.

  Surfacing in the water’s wide expanse, the huge whale seemed suddenly small and frightened. Its vulnerability underscored the many traumas it had endured. Defying human logic, Siku reached the channel by swimming under nearly a quarter mile of ice. For the first time since it was found nineteen days earlier, the whale was swimming in broken ice. Despite Siku’s battered condition, the newly gathered crowd was elated. The whale was in the channel, the home stretch.

  The Eskimos let out the cheer reserved for the most joyous of all occasions: the catching of a bowhead whale. Arnold embraced Malik as if he just returned from a successful whaling mission. Eleven days earlier, at the specially-convened whalers’ meeting, Malik convinced Arnold and other young whalers that the whole exercise might well be a mission for Inupiat survival. If the Eskimos could convince the world that they really did depend on an animal they revered for tens of thousands of years, then maybe the world might start to understand. As the whales were about to be freed, Malik’s theory could begin the test of time.

  Locals, rescuers, and reporters frantically tried to reach the suddenly distant whale. While still within the purview of Operation Breakout, Siku, the lead whale, was finally alone, far from the gentle hand of a well-wisher and no longer dependent upon a tiny machine flown in from Minnesota. The lead whale experienced its first moments of liberation, trying to navigate its way through the dangers of the icy sharp waters, removed from its human protectors. Siku’s reunification with its natural environment must have been a difficult adjustment.

  Poutu, the lone whale remaining in the hand-cut opening, bobbed frantically up and down. Maybe Poutu was reacting to Siku’s underwater moans and squeaks. Perhaps through the gray whale’s highly sophisticated and poorly understood method of communication, Poutu knew where Siku was. Poutu took one last long breath and vanished deep beneath the water. Moments later, the smaller whale surfaced within yards of its leader. It, too, had swum under the quarter mile of ice and emerged in the icebreaker channel. At the rate the two whales were swimming, they would be gone by morning. If all went well, the two whales would arrive in California at the end of January 1989, just about the same time as the man who gave the rescue his official blessing: President Ronald Reagan.

  Bonnie Mersinger insisted that Colonel Carroll contact her the moment it looked like the whales were free. The White House was anxious to make the announcement that the operation was finally over. The whales had become the comic obsession of the humor-starved White House press corps. Each morning at the daily briefing, the customarily stuffy and self-absorbed White House correspondents bombarded spokesman Marlin Fitzwater with tongue-in-cheek questions about the geopolitical implications of the latest earth-stopping developments emanating from the Barrow ice pack. Fitzwater reveled in the levity and promised to have the last laugh.

  Late Wednesday morning, Alaska time, Carroll called Bonnie to relay the rescue’s latest intelligence. The whales were almost free. Bonnie ran excitedly through the corridors of the West Wing to tell Fitzwater the good news. The whales were free. So certain did the news seem, Fitzwater thought the time arrived to cash in on his promise. The amiable press secretary grinned mischievously. “The whales are free,” he exulted with outstretched arms.

  The gathered press burst into spontaneous applause. Who says the cynical press are heartless? To those reporters assigned to cover the West Wing, Operation Breakout seemed over. The misconception was short lived. Colonel Carroll called Bonnie a few minutes later to tell her the bad news: The whales were not yet free. Close, but not yet.

  “I don’t know if you’re religious,” he asked her, “but if you are, I suggest you pray to whichever god you believe in.”
The next day, Fitzwater commented that humble pie was always his favorite.

  Ever since the Russians announced they were on the way, the rescue command discussed what to do if it appeared the whales would survive. Should they tag or follow them, and if so, how? Now that the whales were in the channel, the rescuers had both their first and last opportunity to tag them to monitor their progress. Aside from the staggering problems of electronic tagging, which made tracking all but impossible, Ron Morris and the other rescuers faced an ethical problem even larger.

  Was it “right” to tag the whales after all they had gone through just to satisfy the curiosity of an obsessed world? Ron Morris wanted to keep his options open. The two biologists he flew in from Seattle were experts at tagging marine mammals and always carried the tags with them in the event the decision was made to use them. After all that man had done for the whales, it was the least the whales could do in return, wasn’t it?

  Tagging a marine mammal, particularly one that weighed 50,000 pounds, was no easy task. For the electronic device to work properly it had to be shot deep into the small of the whale’s back with a crossbow by an expert archer. But that opportunity never presented itself when the whales were in the holes. When confined to the small holes, the whales had only enough room to expose their heads. But even in the channel, where the whales started to surface normally, the chances were slim that the cumbersome devices could be properly implanted. It was also likely that the procedure could further stress the whales. Unlike radio transmitters attached to land animals, tagging marine mammals was extremely expensive and very unreliable. It was a new, unrefined technology. The waterproof radio transmitters only worked for about a month and required aircraft with special detection equipment to track them. In the ice-choked waters of the Arctic, tags probably wouldn’t have stayed on the whales for more than a few days.