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The Two-Headed Whale

Life, Loss, and the Tangled Legacy of Whaling in the Antarctic

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Following one woman's voyage across the Antarctic, this elegant debut confronts the dark history of the whaling industry and the mystery of one young whaler's death against the backdrop of the vast Southern Oceans.
"Urgent and moving."—Publishers Weekly STARRED review
Tracing the footsteps of Shackleton, Sandy Winterbottom embarked on an epic six-week tall-ship voyage from Uruguay to Antarctica. At the mid-way stop in South Georgia, her pristine image of the Antarctic was shattered when she discovered the tragic legacy of twentieth century industrial-scale whaling. Enraged by what she found, she was quick to blame the men who undertook this wholescale slaughter, but then she stumbled upon the grave of an eighteen-year-old whaler from Edinburgh who she could not allow to bear the brunt of blame. There are two sides to every story.
The Two-Headed Whale vividly brings to life the spectacular scenery and wildlife of Antarctica, set alongside the true-life story of Anthony Ford, the boy in the grave, as he sailed the same seas and toiled in an industry where profits outranked human life. Drawing together threads of nature and travel writing with an unflinching narrative of life onboard a whaling factory ship and the legacy it left behind, The Two-Headed Whale leaves us questioning our troubled relationship with the extraordinary abundance of this planet.
Published in partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

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Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1070
  • Text Difficulty:6-9

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