The Two-Headed Whale

Starred review from August 21, 2023
In this poignant debut, environmentalist Winterbottom explores the bloody history of the Antarctic whaling industry in the 20th century. Winterbottom writes that she originally approached the topic with an eye toward investigating the mass slaughter of whales. (The figures astonish: upward of 325,000 blue whales, just one species that was hunted, were killed in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica over the course of 20th century; around 5,000 remain today.) However, she became captivated by the accounts of whalers, whose labor conditions were dire: injured workers were not allowed to get immediate medical help (since diverting the ship would reduce profits), whaling stations were overrun with rats, and many of the men suffered psychological trauma as a result of participating in the carnage, which often entailed gruesome cruelties such as pulling babies from pregnant females and leaving calves to starve to death. Winterbottom focuses on the story of Anthony Ford, a 19-year-old whaler who died by suicide after he slept through his ship’s departure and was left stranded for six months at a remote Antarctic whaling station. Combining archival research with her own journey to Antarctica, Winterbottom’s devastating narrative draws parallels between whaling and the fossil fuel industry, both extractive processes run by corporations at the expense of the environment and regular people. The result is an urgent and moving plea for accountability and change.