The movie Big Miracle and what I witnessed in real life, part 14: icebreakers, false news reports, helicopters, whales, biologists; who knows? Men walk and crawl like polar bears

The story gets kind of complex here, but I am in Arizona, soon to leave for India, am flat out of time and so I will attempt to leave a whole bunch of stuff out and try to tell it quickly:*

Logic told me the only good place to photograph the Soviet icebreakers as they cut down the pressure ridge and opened up a path for the whales would be from a helicopter. As I have explained, to be anywhere on the ice near the whales once the icebreakers moved in would be to risk one's life.

Once the light fog that had surrounded Malik and whales at the time of goodbye lifted, the icebreakers could be seen from shore, but not the whales. The distance was about four miles, which put the view of the whales as they surfaced in the chainsaw holes below the curvature of the earth - plus, if I had been able to see them from that distance, at most, even with my longest telephoto lens, they would have appeared only as tiny dots.

I knew that Ron Morris would not knowingly let me on any helicopter that he had any say over, but I talked to Steve Cox, who would be piloting the Long Ranger. He gave me a radio, told me to call when I felt the moment was right and he would swoop down and pick me up.

When the moment was right, I called. No response. I called again. No response. A few minutes later, I tried again. No response.

Then I learned that Morris had commandeered the Long Ranger to be his personal aircraft for the remainder of the rescue. That left the Big Bird, but Morris had drawn up a list of media who could fly in it for this event and I was not on it. In fact, no photographer was. Morris chose national TV, AP reporter Bruce Bartley and print reporter Rich Mauer, who had arrived late but was now reporting not only for the Anchorage Daily News but the New York Times. NBC had their own helicopter. Mauer is a fine reporter, much more skilled than I, but still it seemed to me that his seat could have been put to much better use by a photographer - myself in particular.

A few media folk tried to venture out onto the ice on their own, but the Big Bird swept down and pushed them back to shore - not to keep them from getting their coverage, but to keep them from getting killed.

The approach of the icebreaker wound up going into delay mode, because what I did not know was that a good number of people had snowmachined out to the ridges from Barrow to welcome the Soviets. They had gone with smiles and Soviet flags and had come close enough to the apparently anchored ships to shout out greetings. I heard that gifts were thrown from the ship to the people on the ice - they were that close. And maybe some gifts were thrown upward, too. It is hard to envision many such throws succeeding, but that is what I heard and I believe it.

The breakers could not advance until the people left the ice - hence the delay. In the meantime, Morris made a couple of landings onshore, the two NOAA biologists who served as his advisers with him. On one landing, Mayor Ahmaogak, left, brought up a number of concerns that he had to Morris, and he did suggest that he find a place for me in one of the helicopters that he had now asserted control over.

Morris, of course, refused.

As it happened, some traffic cones and other gear had been left out on the ice, near one of the whale holes. Geoff Carroll, who is as savvy on the ice as any non-Iñupiaq, maybe just about anyone, set out with a snowmachine and sled to retrieve the gear. I hopped on with him.

When he stopped, I stood up on the snowmachine seat behind him with a 300 mm telephoto lens. To my amazement, from the vantage of just that extra couple of feet, I could see a line of holes, the whales when they surfaced and the icebreakers coming - one of them had already penetrated the pressure ridges and was coming straight for the whales. Very soon, they would demolish the very ice which we now occupied, but not before I could snap this frame the holes, the whales, and the icebreakers while Geoff loaded the cones and gear into the sled. 

Then we were out of there, racing back to land.

Then, from the shore, too far away to distinguish any discernable action, I watched, helpless, as the icebreakers ripped their way through the ice toward the whales. Finally, we got word the job was done - channels had been opened up all the way from the lead to the whales. The whales were now swimming in the channels, toward the lead. I cannot remember precisely how long... an hour, two, three... but a quiet period was designated in which no one was to go out on the ice to approach the whales. We were to let them be, let them move out on their own. This all made good sense.

The temperature was about -17 or -18 F, (-27 C). Whaling captain Roy Nageak had driven his truck and family out to watch and invited me to come in and warm up with them. I had not thought I was cold, but even now I can feel how wonderful the heat generated by his idling engine felt. Roy had his car radio on, tuned to KBRW. Soon, the hourly news came on. The lead story was from AP - the gray whales had been rescued, it said, quoting Ron Morris, by the Soviet icebreakers and were swimming free - they were on their way to the sun, warmth and Beach Boy music of Southern California.

But they weren't.

The whales - who I doubt cared anything at all about Beach Boy music, had not yet been rescued, they were not going south, they were not in the lead, but were were still here, trapped in the ice - although many in the media, believing the story to be over, were already at the airport waiting to board the evening flight out. Many left.

The icebreaker channel the whales swam in had quickly filled with chunks and slush, which soon began to harden into rubble ice, leaving a few pools here and there. The two whales had made some forward progress, but then they had begun to cut and slash themselves on the hardened slush and jagged chunks, so they stopped and took refuge in one large pool.

As the situation became clear, Bill Allen jumped back into action with the Archimedean Screw Tractor, flying the American flag in front of the Soviet Icebreakers. Apparently, he thought he could clear the icebreaker channels of slush and ice chunks, even though in his own wake he had so far left no clear water but only slush and ice chunks behind.

Oran Caudle stood beside me. After sending out his original tape that brought the plight of the whales to world-wide attention, Caudle had spent most of his time in the studio, working to support the various TV crews that needed his help to get their footage out to their audiences.

Now he was back, to temporarily take the place of the CNN cameraman who I  had seen slip and fall on the Makarov. The cameraman had hurt himself worse than I had realized and was now out of action.

Suddenly, I felt the ice drop beneath my feet. Then cracks shot out from the Screw Tractor and split the ice on both sides of me. Oran also found the ice breaking around him. Next, we were running for our lives as the Archimdean Screw shattered the ice beneath us. Had either of us fallen through, I doubt we could have been saved. We would would have slipped through the cracks bertween the slabs of newly broken ice, and then those slabs would have closed over us.

I heard the scream of a woman, somewhere on the other side of the screw. She must have found herself in the same situation. She must have gotten out of it okay.

So the whalers retrieved their chainsaws, poles and other gear and set out to cut new holes. I'm certain that by now, all readers who have been following this story recognize Malik and his cap, as he now sought to ascertain the condition of the whale friends he had said goodbye to several hours before.

The light was fading. Darkness was about to set in. Before the whalers could cut more than a hole or two, Morris gave the order - everyone was to evacuate the ice, to leave the whales alone, away from the presence of the men and machines they had become accustomed to - give them a chance to work their way through the open pools still in the channels to open water.

At daybreak, Morris said, he would go on a scouting mission in the Long Ranger to see if the whales were still about, or if they had swum free into the lead - as had already been reported to the world. Until then, no one - spectator, media, or even the whalers and chainsaw cutters - was to go onto the ice anywhere in the vicinity of the rescue operation.

So I snowmachined in to Pepe's with Jeff, ordered a big, hot, steak picado meal and devoured it - and before I continue, I think I must say a word in defense of Fran Tate and Pepe's. It was widely rumored and even reported in the media that she had raised her prices by outrageous amounts - 200 percent, 300 percent and beyond - to take advantage of the media that had flocked into Barrow.

This was not true. Not only did Fran hold her prices where they had been, but before the rescue she had scheduled a special day, with discounted fare, and she honored that - for locals, media, and all. Maybe her normal prices shocked some in the media and maybe that is why they made such untrue reports and created such false rumors - but everything is expensive in Barrow.

After I gorged, I returned to my quarters hoping to finally take a halfway decent rest before rising early to develop my film and put out some prints for Jeff and UPI. 

The next morning, as I worked on the prints at my NARL lab, I had this nervous feeling that I should not be doing so, but that I should be headed down to the ice - right now. I dismissed the feeling as one spawned by the fact that I had been going so relentlessly hard, day and night, for so many days straight that it now just felt wrong not to be. What could I do on the ice? -  which Morris had ruled off-limits. It was still dark and no one was out there. We would not know what had become of the whales until Morris took his scouting flight.

Yet, the feeling persisted. I turned on a VHF radio that I had borrowed from NSB Wildlife and then listened as I printed to see if I might learn anything.

I was startled by what I heard. In an agitated and angry voice, Ron Morris was shouting orders to Geoff Carroll and Craig George at NSB Wildlife Management not to go onto the ice, and to keep the Eskimos off the ice. As soon as they heard Morris calling to them on the radio, Carroll jumped on his snowmachine and began the trip to the ice to find out what was happening. Craig then picked up the radio mic and responded to Morris's order. It was too late, Craig told Morris, Geoff had already left. 

I kept my ear to the radio and in awhile I heard the voice of Morris, whose transmissions had now reached Carroll on the ice. Carroll had physically reached a few hunters who had defied Morris and had gone down to the ice. "I'm in charge here, I'm responsible here," an angry Morris commanded, "and I'm ordering you to get everyone and get off the ice! Get the Eskimos off the ice!"

"It's kind of out of my hands, now," Craig responded. "They've already gone to get the chainsaws."

"Get the Eskimos under control and get everyone off the ice!" Morris repeated his order.

That was it for me. I left the pictures I had been printing for UPI in the wash. I donned my gear, ran out, jumped on the snowmachine I had borrowed from Wildlife and charged off down to the ice. The sun had not yet risen, but dawn had begun to glow in the sky and to reflect off the ice.

When I arrived at the site, what you see above is what I found: Malik, speaking to a bloodied and weakened whale that now had only enough energy to barely lift its blow hole above the surface of the water. The other was equally weak - no snouts were being lifted in the way we had become accustomed to seeing. The seabird hovered above, apparently looking to see if the blood it smelled meant there was a meal to be had.

This is what I learned had happened: Geoff had arrived to find a few whalers alongside the ice breaker channel, which was now almost completely frozen over, so much so that a snowmachine could be driven over it. Alfred Brower had gone out first, to search up and down the icebreaker channels in the dark. The others joined in and had driven alongside the channel all the way to the lead without spotting a whale.

Then they turned around and as they drove back. Alfred Brower, traveling separately, I believe on the opposite side of the channel, spotted a snout, barely rising above the ice through a hole just feet across. The blowhole had come just about level to the surface of the water, but the whale could not push it above. Convinced that he was looking at dying whale, Alfred ran out onto the rubble and slush-filled, refrozen icebreaker channel, dropped to his knees and and began to chop at the rim of hole with his pocket knife until there was enough clearance for the whale to push through and breathe - rapidly for a whale, in pants. 

Alfred Brower, right, and his brother, Johnny, earlier in the rescue.The others quickly joined him, chopping away with their knives to save the whale. Geoff observed Crossbeak inhale some slush, because the whale could not lift its blow hole above it. The barnacles centered just behind the blow holes of the whale called Bonnet had all been ripped off. All joined Alfred in chopping with their knives until the hole was big enough to allow the whales to easily lift their blow holes above the water.

Had they not done this, all present were convinced the whales would have drowned - and soon. If this had happened, there is a good possiblity the whales would have disappeared beneath the ice. They would have vanished from sight. Morris would have taken his scouting flight, spotted no whales and would almost certainly have declared them free and gone and the rescue over. Earlier, it had been suggested that the whales be radio-tagged. This idea was rejected as potentially too stressful to the whales - but some noted that if the whales were tagged, left the area and then got stuck again somewhere else, then a whole, new, predicament would have been created.

Malik is not patting the whale's snout here. He is feeling one of its wounds - but still talking to it, still soothing it, encouraging it.

"Get the Eskimos under control and get everyone off the ice!" Morris had ordered.

Instead, the Eskimos had retrieved their chainsaws and began to cut anew. I arrived right after they had enlarged the breathing hole just enough to give the whales a little more comfort.

At the fore of this picture is one of the holes that the whales had struggled to breathe through as the icebreaker channel sealed itself over them. If this were a color photo, the darkened area would be red.

Morris said he did not want people driving their snowmachines on the ice and cutting holes with chainsaws because the whales had become accustomed to those noises, perhaps comforted by them. They might be right in the lead itself but then return from the place where they could breathe easy and free and swim as they wished to return to where they had been trapped, stuggling to breathe - just because the sound of men and engines. So said Morris.

Soon, a TV crew arrived. It would not be long before representatives of the media still in Barrow began to show up on the ice as well. Yet, they must not all have come, or they did not believe their own eyes, or maybe they just could not fully back away from their broadcasts of the day before that the whales were free.

Some now put out reports in which the whales had not actually departed to go south, but were lingering - as if by choice - in the lead or the icebreaker channels. The whales were not lingering. They were trapped, battered and beaten. I am convinced that by the time I arrived, the whales would have been dead had not Alfred Brower taken the action he had, had not the other whalers and Geoff joined in.

The whalers began to cut a new series of holes alongside the frozen, rubble-filled, channel toward the lead - which was not far away. Crew boss Johnny Leavitt stated that they would now "walk" the whales right to the lead and then watch them swim into it and depart.

Someone associated with Wildlife needed the snowmachine they had lent me, so I gave it up and was left on foot. There were plenty of machines and sleds about and I could catch a ride when it came time to leave. I like to walk, so it didn't matter.

Then along came Bill Allen in the Archimedes Screw Tractor, determined to get into the action and to cut new, slush and ice-filled channels that would quickly solidify and refreeze in the -20 F weather. Remember the post I made when the C5-A jet brought the screw tractor to Barrow? Remember how I stated that I felt like I entered the Twilight Zone, from which there would be no escape?

In the foreground, is the rubble left behind in one of the icebreaker channels. I stand in the middle, on my way to make a desperate attempt to get a helicopter ride. What I really needed now was some aerial shots. I HAD to get up in a helicopter. I saw the Long Ranger land on the opposite side of the icebreaker channel, near the portable tool shed that the hunters kept mounted on a sled. Two or three journalists got out of the chopper, as did Morris, who walked over to the tool shed. My friend, Chuck Caldwell, who had accompanied me on my first student pilot cross-country flight - 850 miles from Anchorage to Barrow - was the pilot. The journalists obviously intended to stay for awhile and I knew Morris would not stay long. 

I knew he would be opposed to me boarding the chopper, but, with the empty seats left behind by the journalists, he had no good argument to make, other than that he was in charge and the decision was his. I wanted a seat, I wanted to get my aerial photos, so I decided I would make the request and if he denied me, I would point out the obvious and see if I could reach a reasonable segment of his mind.

I scurried across the rubble-filled channel as quickly as I dared, but when I got to the side where the helicopter was, I found a completely open channel about three feet wide, separating the rubble ice in the channel from the main ice.

I took a flying leap towards what I was certain was solid ice. I was wrong. My feet went through snow with nothing but water below. The ice must have broken away from beneath it and left it hanging, or maybe it was drift from the wind. As I plunged quickly down almost to my waist, I threw my weight and cameras forward and spread my arms to stop me from going down further. I felt the shock of 29 degree water strike the flesh of my legs; I felt my bunny boots filling up, and  - forgive me for being crude but true - got that horrible shock a guy gets when his balls hit frigid water and instantly shrivel and shrink away to almost nothing.

I had already made all the babies I ever would, so in some ways it probably wouldn't have really mattered if they had been rendered inoperable, but I still wanted to enjoy life to the maximum amount possible.

My colleague, Charles Mason, who could not get his bosses at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner to buy him a plane ticket to Barrow and so had made a deal with a top photo agency to shoot for them, came running to my side. "Are you okay?" he asked. I believe he was among those who had just gotten off the Long Ranger. I was. I looked up, straight into the glinting eyes of Ron Morris, who  had returned to the helicopter and was about to reboard. I had enough of my weight on the ice that I was able to pull myself out of the water on my own. 

Good! The temperature was somewhere close to -20 F. Now that I was wet almost from the waist down, Morris could not deny me a seat on the helicopter. As I returned to my feet, he climbed back into the idling helicopter. I started to run over - then, to my disbelief, Chuck applied power and the helicopter began to rise. Morris was taking off without me. I raised my camera and shot this picture and I shot in anger.

I must stress I was not angry at Chuck. I am certain he wanted to take me. Chuck had not seen me go into the water. I am fully confident that if he had, he would have exercised his ultimate authority as pilot-in-command and would have overruled Morris and made certain I got onto the chopper. I have no doubt.

After the rescue, as I was putting Uiñiq together, I called Morris for an interview. Late in the interview, I brought up the incident and asked him why he left me behind after I had fallen into the water. He grew angry. He vehmently denied ever knowing that I had gone into the water. If he had seen me go into the water, he said, he would surely have invited me onto the heliopter.

Yet, I had seen his eyes, connected sharply with mine, looking directly into mine, even as my legs were still in the water. One does not forget something like that. In his defense, I must acknowledge that he was in a tremendously difficult spot. The entire world, including President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, were closely watching from a distance. If the rescue obviously failed, a finger of blame - perhaps even the Presidential finger - would undoubtedly swing itself to point straight at Ron Morris. So I suppose it is possible he could have been under such great stress that his eyes could stare right into mine as I was paritially in the water, but could see only backwards, into whatever frightful turmoil roiled in his own mind.

As the relationship between the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, the North Slope Borough and NOAA was critically important, vital even, to the bowhead hunt, I did not write the incident up in Uiñiq. I did write it into my original draft of the gray whale chapter in Gift of the Whale, but the chapter was way too long for the available space, so I cut the incident as I pared the chapter down.

Morris is retired. I am told he is living in California now. I hope he is warm and that life in what can be a hard age is good for him. Twenty-three-and-a-half years have passed. Yet, I am telling my story here and this is part of it.

I was worried, and not certain what to do, but very soon, as I kept myself moving, the water between my feet and the inner layer of my rubberized, insulated to 60 below bunny boots began to warm. I also discovered that, as long as I kept moving, even wet, my insulated Arctic pants still insulated. They did not make my legs warm, but did not leave them unbearably cold, either.

As it was obvious I was not going to get on a helicopter, I walked back to where the whale hunters were at work, rescuing whales, where they cut and opened breathing holes with chainsaws and poles - just as they had been doing every day for nearly two weeks now.

And now, another irony was about to fall upon me. Readers who have been with this series from the beginning will recall that, at the start of my career, there were two national publications I had wanted above all others to publish in - National Geographic and Life Magazine. I made it into National Geographic early in my career, but  Life had eluded me. After the rescue began, Life was among a large group of publications and agencies, including Newsweek and Sipa, where staff had seen my first wire-service images of the whales and rescue, and had tried to hire me to shoot color for them. I had turned them all down, including Life, because I put my magazine, Uiñiq, first and it was all black and white and I wanted to shoot black and white.

I had gotten Life to agree to consider my black and whites if I could send them a good selection by Thursday, ten days in the future. I had hoped the rescue would be over in time for me to do that. But this was that Thursday. The ten days had passed. I had had no time to do an edit-and-print session for Life. The edits I did for UPI were quick and partial. I didn't even develop all my film. The prints I made were quick and dirty - good enough for the wires, but not to submit to Life.

As I walked back, I saw a whale rise high through one of the new holes the whalers had cut in the ice this day, with an icebreaker cruising behind. This was good, because it meant the whales were recovering from the shocked and lethargic state they had been in when I first arrived.

I wanted to photograph what I had just seen. To do so, I would have to stay at a distance and use a telephoto lens. If I were to go closer to the hole and use a wider lens, the icebreakers would recede into tiny things at the back of the frame. A telephoto would hold them prominent in the frame. I positioned myself on a mound of ice, framed the scene just like I wanted it, and then waited for a whale to rise. It was a fairly long wait, as there were several new holes and the whales were going back and forth between them. As I waited, Charles Mason walked by. He was aglow, ebullient, his spirits high, his mood good. This was a stark contrast from how he had been earlier in the rescue.

He had exercised bold initiative to get to Barrow, but once here, had been overwhelmed by the environment and had sunk into depression. We had eaten at Pepe's together a few times and he had lamented that he had come, he had wondered if he was a true photojournalist at all, and had pointed to one of our colleagues from Alaska who had worked in the papers but had then gone overseas into war zones and had made an international name for himself.

This man, Mason said, was a true photojournalist. He had what it took. He was not so sure about himself. He was almost ready to go home. I knew how he felt, because I have felt that way many times - and I will feel that way again in the future. So I encouraged him to hang on and see it through. Early on, he missed a ride on a helicopter and so I told him to jump on the back of my snowmachine and I would take him to the whales. He was afraid. The wind would be too hard on him, he said. I told him to get on, it would be okay, he would enjoy the ride.

He did, and he did enjoy the ride. He did not go home. He stayed put, he shot, he worked hard.

"I hope I don't get in the way of your shot," he now called out cheerfully as he walked past me. Good, this meant he was aware of what I was doing and would respect it. He would not ruin my picture. I waited a bit longer. Soon, a whale rose just where I wanted it - and just as I was about to snap the shutter, Charles charged in between me and the whale with a wider lens. He blocked my shot.

I repositioned myself a bit and set it up again. I waited. Then... same thing again! Charles charged in and blocked my shot a second time. I reestablished the shot. Again, at the critical moment Charles charged in and blocked it. Three times in a row. I then decided that what he had really meant was, "I'm going to get in the way of your shot." I was angry. I walked up to him, to his left side and slightly behind, stopped and waited. The whale rose. He lifted his camera. Before he could press the shutter, I shoved him - hard.

"Geez, Bill!" he stammered, shocked. As I say, we had become friends.

"What the hell you doing?" I countered. "You knew I had been waiting for that shot a long time, and still you screwed it up!" He apologized profusely, told me I had every right to do what I had just done. Suddenly, I felt awful, horrified at myself. I was on the Arctic ice, with Iñupiat whalers, who had taught me about the necessity of good will on the ice, and I had just lost my temper and done something awful. I felt ashamed of myself.

Now I apologized. Through the entire encounter, he continued to glow. He then told me his agency had been pushing his photos at Life. Life liked them. They were going to use his pictures for their spread on the gray whale rescue. They did, and there were some excellent images, all in bright and sparkling color. Afterward, Life would enter the Charles Mason gray whale rescue essay in many contests, including the World Press competion, where he would win the exceedlingly prestigious Oskar Barnack Award.

It did wonders for his career. Overnight, he became a bit of a celebrity in the worlds of photojournalism and art photography. The Univerisity of Alaska hired him as head photography instructor and gave him a great deal of freedom and support to go out and shoot his own projects - at which he did very well.

"Sometimes," he told me as the hunters cut, the whales continued to rise and the icebreakers appeared to drift just beyond the shore ice, "Something wild and crazy happens, you just hang on and go for the ride, and it works out amazing.”

I could not help but admire his talent and what he had done, but it was also a very funny feeling for me, given the course of this rescue. You could say I had no one to blame but myself, for turning down Life's original offer because I felt even more strongly towards Uiñiq magazine, which had a circulation of less than 3000 people, compared to Life's millions.

I had never been inclined to enter photo competitions, but for 1988, I made an exception. I knew that every photojournalist who had come to the rescue would almost certainly enter the National Press Photographer's Association - Pictures of the Year Awards. I did not want them to leave me in the cold, so I entered. I had little consciousness of the World Press Awards and none at all of the very prestigious Oskar Barnack Award, so I did not enter there.

Life also entered Charles' essay at NPPA-POY. Only one gray whale rescue won an award at NPPA and it was featured on the back cover of the Pictures of the Year coffee table book for 1988 - my picture of Malik reaching out to say to goodbye to Crossbeak - the one that I used to close the series of Malik's first goodbye.

Even so, it was just one picture of many of a miltitude of events from around the world that won NPPA-POY awards that year, whereas the Oskar Barnak Award was a unique thing. Few took much note of my NPPA award, that I had won over the same photos that won the Oskar Barnack Award, but the entire world of photojournalism took big note of the work and photographer that had won the latter. Both Charles and I were later invited a short time later to be panelists at a UAF seminar on cold weather photography. He was introduced as the winner of the prestigious Oskar Barnack Award for his work on the gray whale rescue. He got loud and enthusiastic applause. My work on the gray whale rescue was not mentioned, nor was my NPPA-POY award.

I was introduced as "an enthnographic photographer" - a term I do not relate to - who published Uiñiq magazine on behalf of the North Slope Borough. I think only one person in the audience knew Uiñiq - Dr. James Nageak, Iñupiaq language professor from Barrow. To the audience, Charles was the photographic star of the rescue. They did not know that I had even been there at all. 

I couldn't mention it, either. In fact, I feel guilty mentioning it now, because it runs counter to Iñupiat teachings to boast about what you have done. But it is part of my story, the story I tell here, and if I don't write it, no one will ever know it. Perhaps it is petty of me, but I have just enough of an ego that I want people to know. The audience didn't know it, but I was there - from beginning to end. I didn't manage to photograph everything I wanted to, but I still covered the rescue to a depth, breadth and quality matched by no other photographer.

And now there is a major motion picture and the starring character is a composite of Oran Caudle Caudell and me - but mostly me - Oran at the beginning, when he sent his tape to NBC affiliate Channel 2. The rest of the time, the role filled by the main character, including the exclusives he got, was in real life filled. In my own adventure, a moment came in which one of the greatest and most successful Iñupiat whale harpooners of modern times was alone with the whales, walking with the whales, gently talking to the whales, patting the whales, loving the whales. It was a moment the likes of which had never happened before. I doubt it will ever happen again. I was there for it, alone with Malik, the harpooner, and the whales.

And when it was all over, I had a beautiful, black-haired Apache wife, Margie, who loved me, to go home to, to fall exhausted into her arms. Adam Carlson only had Drew Barrymore. And on the movie set, my book, Gift of the Whale, was everywhere, used as "the Bible" for this set and that, and for this wardrobe and that wardrobe and no one knows it was so, save for the tiny handful of people who read this blog, because neither my book nor I were ever credited.

I feel petty and self serving in stating all this, but it is fact. And I experienced something so unique and have just enough ego that I want people who see this in many ways wonderful and fun, fictitious, uplifting movie to know.

This does not take anything away from Charles. He is a superb photographer. He entered the contest, I didn't. He earned his award. He deserves the recognition and success it helped him to achieve. The fact is, if I could go 23 years back in time, foresee what I now know and be put in the same position, I would do the same thing all over again. Charles would still score in Life. I would still make Uiñiq magazine. His fine gray whale rescue work would still be viewed by millions upon millions, mine by a few thousand.

His day arrived, mine didn't. I felt kind of like the Kevin Costner character at the conclusion of the baseball movie, Bull Durham. My day has not yet come, except in periods of minutes here and there, but I still believe it will. I just hope it gets here before I die - not so I can relax, but so I can hopefully gain more support to do the work I still need to do. I've got lots of work yet to do. I have a huge number of stories to tell - more than I can possibly tell, but I would like to tell as many of them as I can.

But then, really, what does it matter if my day ever really comes? I have so far had a wonderful career. I have known freedom that few other photographers ever do. I have never come close to doing all that I have imagined that I would - but I have still done many things - more than most people who have lived and died ever got a chance to do. I have had the opportunity to work with great and unique people.

I am a most fortunate man. So stop complaining, Bill Hess! Stop whining. Get on with it! Do whatever you still can, however you can do. Just don't stop. Until you die. Then you can stop. Just leave something behind that will continue to reach people who later die, just like you did.

After my conversation with Charles ended, I shot this picture, similar to the ones he had blocked - except not quite so compressed, because I never did back up as far away from the action to where I had originally set up the shot.

As evening approached, the whalers had cut holes to within a few hundred yards of the open lead - perhaps 400 yards. Not close enough for the whales to make their leap, but close enough to raise the spirits of the crew. Before darkness would set in, Johnny Leavitt planned to have his crew cut one last hole, a large one for the whales to overnight in. Then, in the morning, the whalers could "walk" the whales to the lead. Everyone could watch, photograph, shout and cheer as the whales swam free - perhaps to raise their flukes into the air and slap the water with a splash, for the first time since they had become trapped three weeks earlier.

Then a very strange thing happened. The icebreakers readied themselves to come and cut again. Morris gave the order for everyone to evacuate the ice. The Soviets were going to come in to make another cut, one that would set the whales free - no more need for chainsaws.

Johnny, Malik the whalers and the Wildlife biologists were upset. They had a chance to "walk" the whales to freedom, to know for certain that they made it there safely. The icebreakers would not finish their work until well after dark. Perhaps no one would even see the whales after dark. Perhaps no one would ever know.

Mayor Ahmaogak, his wife Maggie, some of his top staff and North Slope Borough Public Information Officer Marie Carroll were about to fly in the Big Bird to the icebreakers, to give advice on where they should cut. This was a Borough delegation and no one outside the Borough, not even Morris, could prevent me from going, so the Big Bird flew by and picked me up. I had hoped we would fly over the holes, so I could finally get a few aerial shots, but we didn't. As the sky dimmed, darkness approached, and the Iñupiats on the ice who knew what they were doing evacuated at Morris's order and the advance of the icebreakers,  I was again on the Makarov, the Arseniev close by, taking new cuts at the ice.

Onboard the Makarov, Mayor George Ahmaogak and Marie Adams went over navigation charts with Soviet officers to better direct them on where best to make their final cuts toward the still-trapped whales.

Again, Morris had ordered everyone to stay off the ice until he did his survey the next morning and gave the goahead for people to return. Now, almost all the media had left. Again, Alfred Brower defied the order of Morris and was out on the ice, early, well before sunrise. He reported that about 8:30 AM, he saw a whale in a hole in what was once again rapidly refreezing slush and rubble. The whale then left that hole, went backwards toward another hole, where the other whale was. Both then left that hole and appeared to be headed in the right direction, toward the lead, which was close.

Still before daybreak, I walked to Wildlife and then headed out with Craig and George, this time on a sled. Soon, we found several members of the chainsaw crew and then went exploring along the new icebreaker cuts with them. As before, the channels were filled mostly with chunks of ice in slush. As if it were nothing at all, the whalers picked their way across these channels by stepping on the larger chunks of ice, anchored only in slush and very thin, less than an inch. I wanted to follow but was hesitant.

"Step on just the chunks, and you'll be okay," Malik told me. "Step on that thin stuff, you'll fall through. Just remember to walk like a polar bear."

So I did. We found a few "whale tracks" - places where one or both of the whales had surfaced in the slush and chunks before it fully refroze. The tracks were pocked with specks and small balls of frozen blood. Finally, we came to the last track and this is it. It appeared to be within reasonable swimming distance of the lead. I shot several frames but the temperature about -25 F and some of the salt water must have made it into my cameras after all, because the other frames I shot here all overlap each other, due to shutter-lag caused by the cold. 

The whalers were happy, yet frustrated. No one knew for certain whether the whales had swum into the lead and resumed their migration south and they knew that they would have known if they had just been allowed to follow their own plan. Also, given all the blood, it was apparent that the whales had struggled and battered themselves all over again. They still had over 300 miles to reach waters not hemmed in by ice. The whalers and NSB biologists believed that if they had made it into the lead, as it appeared they did, they had now resumed their journey in a more weakend condition than they would have been had they been "walked" to the lead.

It wasn't long before a British TV camera crew showed up and then one other. Media wise, that was just about it for this, the final segment of the rescue. Here, they tape Freddie Joe Kaleak as he digs chunks of frozen whale blood out of an ice fracture.

Freddie Joe Kaleak holds chunks of frozen whale blood.

Then the Long Ranger landed nearby. Ron Morris got out. Citing the authority he said he held under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, he ordered everyone off the ice. He said that if the whales were out swimming free in the lead, where they could splash with their flukes, breathe freely, follow their natural instincts, resume their journey south and do any damn thing they wanted, he did not want them to hear our machines and come swimming back to us under the ice, where they could not breathe.

There was nothing more to be done anyway, so, as Morris returned to the chopper and flew off to look for the whales that he would never spot; we left, but we took our time. We stopped at whale holes along the way - all of them refrozen over. At one, where the ice looked to be not much more than one inch thick, I was surprised to see Johnny Brower jump in and start to Eskimo dance. That is another of the many photos that I have misplaced. It is somewhere, though, and someday I must find it.

Seeing that Johnny did not fall through, I jumped on and started to Eskimo dance with him. It felt like I was dancing on a water bed. Then Craig George stomped on the ice behind me and put a hole in it. I got off. Johnny wasn't done. "This is how a polar bear crosses thin ice," he said. Then, acting like he was a polar bear himself, he scurried back and forth on his belly on the thin ice.

Then, as we continued back towards land, Freddie Joe Kaleak did a sit-down Eskimo dance on the traveling sled. Johnny Brower and Billy Adams smiled. 

The Great Gray Whale Rescue of October, 1988, had come to its end. 

But this series is not over. I have one post left to put up - an epilogue. It will be worth it to come back.

*I didn't fully succeed at this goal.

p> 

Complete series index:

Part 1: Context bowhead hunt

Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik

Part 3: Scouting trip

Part 4: NBC on the ice

Part 5: To rescue or euthanize

Part 6: Governor Cowper, ice punch, chainsaw holes

Part 7: Malik provides caribou for dinner

Part 8: CNN learns home is sacred place

Part 9: World's largest jet; Screw Tractor

Part 10: Think like a whale

Part 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik

Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers

Part 13: Malik walks with whales, says goodbye

Part 14: Rescue concludes

Part 15: Epilogue

The movie Big Miracle and what I witnessed in real life, part 12: with help from my pilot friends, I slip past authority into Soviet icebreaker

As the two Soviet icebreakers drew near, Ron Morris announced that he and two military officials, NOAA Rear Admiral Sig Petersen and Coast Guard Captain Jim McClelland, standing here to the right of Morris, would be flown out to greet them in the large North Slope Borough helicopter, known as Big Bird. No media would be allowed. Naturally, the media protested and when the captains of the Soviet ships found out, they reportedly protested as well, as did high Soviet officials. They wanted the world to know of the good work they were doing.  So Morris backed off, and agreed to take a media contingent.

I wanted to be part of that contingent, but Morris had other ideas. He was going to take a media pool, which would include just one photographer,  - Jack Smith of the Associated Press. Morris was adamant - I had to stay on shore. I pressed my case - I was the only photographer who had documented this from the beginning, that I was making a comprehensive photo essay record the likes of which no other photographer could, and that I was local. The media pool would be of no benefit to my work at all. If I got cut out now, I would just get cut out. Smith's photos might well serve the newspapers of the world, but not my more comprehensive essay.

Morris agreed that I had a point and said he would think about it. Soon, the interpreter who would traveling with them showed up on the stairs with a list of names of all the media going. This list would be presented to Soviet officials on the ship who would authorize those individuals to come on board. My name was not on the list. I went to Morris, and asked him about the omission. "Bill, I told you I was taking the pool, and no one else!" Morris retorted sharply, as if our earlier discussion had never taken place. "I told you that! No. You can't go. I'm sorry, but I'm responsible here, I'm in charge, and I have made my decision."

I could see no good reason for this at all. There would be plenty of room on the Big Bird. NSB Search and Rescue director and pilot Randy Crosby then put in a plea to Morris on my behalf, but Morris was just as admamant with him. Crosby couldn't really argue with him, because Morris was acting on behalf of President Ronald Reagan, whose wife, Nancy, had told the entire world that she was praying for the whales.

Still, I wasn't ready to give up. I presented my case to Rear Admiral Petersen, but he did not even acknowledge my presence. He did not look at me, he did not glance at me, he did not say, "yes," he did not say, "no." He ignored me as thorougly as one human being can ignore another, as though I were empty space, occupying nothing. He ignored me so thoroughly that, for a moment, I began to wonder if I were really there at all.

When I set my mind to something, I don't give up easily, but now I felt helpless. Randy took off with the entourage in the Big Bird. What to do now? I could go back to the whale site and photograph the cutting of more holes. The photos would look pretty much as my other photos - the photos that mattered today would be of the Soviet icebreakers. The only way I could get there would be by helicopter, from Search and Rescue. I could try to sneak out to the pressure ridges by snowmachine, but anyone there within good photographic range of the icebreakers as they drew near ran a high risk of getting killed, once the breakers struck the ridge and the shattering spread out in all directions.

Remember this when you watch the conclusion of the movie, Big Miracle.

So, even though it appeared hopeless, I decided to hang out at the hangar and just see what might happen.

Time passed, with me in the hangar, accomplishing nothing... an hour, two hours... I can't remember for certain. Maybe three, possibly even four, but I don't think so. It felt interminable, though. At about 2:00 in the afternoon, NSBSAR pilot Steve Cox told me that Randy was bringing some Russians from the ship in Big Bird to see the whales. He was going to fly down to greet them in the Long Ranger. Did I want to come along and photograph the Russians looking at the whales?

I hopped into the Long Ranger with Cox and off we went. As we drew near to the holes, I saw a potential picture that a number of my colleagues had been getting, but that I had so far completely missed - the holes from the air. They now extended close to four miles offshore. I had been traveling back and forth by snowmachine. My more southerly and less northerly adapted colleagues would catch rides on the media flights launched each day by NSBSAR and so had been able to photograph what I had not.

Now, I saw the holes, and shot this and one more frame. It was not the angle I wanted and I was shooting through plexiglass. Cox assured me that when we returned to the hangar, he would fly me to whatever angle I wanted and open the door for me.

As soon as I stepped out of the helicopter, I was met by Dan, also of NSBSAR who was flying with Randy and Price Brower in the Big Bird and by this Russian man, who had engaged Dan in a trade - an NSBSAR patch for a Russian cigarette. I can't ever recall seeing Dan smoke and I don't know if he did or not, but that was not the point.

Just moments later, Randy called on the radio from the Big Bird. "Come over, Bill, and hop on board," he invited.

So I  scurried over and as I did, I saw Dan, Morris and the Russian man to the right walking in the same general direction. I shot a frame or two and then, when Morris was not looking, hopped into the helicopter and took a seat where I hoped he would not spot me. The Russians boarded. Dan closed the doors. Randy did his pre-ignition check and then, just as he finished, Morris peered at the window and spotted me. A deeply chagrined look swept over his face. Randy started to crank the rotors. Morris shrugged, stepped back, the chopper roared to life. Soon we were airborne, on our way to the Soviet ships.

It wasn't long before the ships, the icebreaker Admiral Makarov and the Vladimir Arsenev came into sight. The Arsenev had not been designed as an icebreaker, but a cargo ship, but had been reinforced with ice-breaking capabilities.

"Look at them! Boy! They're really trucking!" I heard Randy's voice through the headset I wore. I was amazed. They were trucking. They were slicing their way through the sea ice at a speed I would not even have imagined.

The Makarov was in the lead...

...cutting a channel that the Arseniev followed in.

We landed on the Areseniev. As we approached and I saw the deck, the sailors standing on it and the Soviet helicopter on the helipad, I felt hope and excitement - and something just a bit dark and ominous. All my life, I had been taught to fear these guys, the Soviets. Fear them! These Communists who at any moment on any day could fire their atomic armed missiles at us and so set off the catclysm that would be the end of civilization and humanity as we had come to know it; Armageddon.

Captain McClelland was on the Arseniev and we were going to pick him up and take him to the Makarov, but with the helicopter sitting on the heliport, we couldn't land. So we followed along in a holding pattern for a short while. Soon, the helicopter took off. Randy had given the pilot-in-command on this flight to Price Brower, who now had a rapidly moving target to land upon - something he wasn't used to. He made a perfect landing - much to his own pleasure and pride.

Captain McClelland boarded with a couple of Russians and then we lifted off and headed toward the Makarov. Along the way, we passed over a mother polar bear with two cubs, swimming in a stretch of open water. Yes, I got pictures, but no, I could not locate those pictures to include them here. Someday, I will find them and post them here. 

We landed on the Makarov and began to deboard. I spotted the sailor to the left, a classic Russian fur hat upon his head. He had come with a surreptitious mission, which none of us on the helicopter, nor any official or officer onboard, yet knew of.

As I was about to follow the captain and the Russians off the helicopter, Randy let me know that he, Price and Dan were about to fly back to Barrow on some kind of mission. I did not want to go back to Barrow until I had spent some time on the icebreaker, but I feared if I got off and started to leave with the group, Captain McClelland, who had witnessed my exchange with Morris and my non-exchange with Rear Admiral Petersen, would take note, point out that I had no authorization to be on the ship and would demand that I return to Barrow.

So I let Captain McClelland walk away, with his back to me. Then I got off. Big Bird lifted off and these Soviet Sailors waved goodbye.

Then it  fully dawned on me what I had done. I had deposited myself, alone, on the deck of a Soviet Ship - one that I had no authorization to be on. I scanned the deck of the ship, and studied the huge, sky-scraper like structure that rose above it. It looked awfully damn forebidding - painted white, yet somehow dark, like the Soviet Empire I had been raised to fear. I walked towards it and saw a door, with two sailors standing in front of it.

I walked over. The sailors were very perplexed. They could not understand me and I could not understand them. After gesturing and worried talking among themselves, one gestured to me. I followed him through the door. Inside, the Makarov, built in Finland, was immaculate and clean. My guide started to climb some stairs and I followed. Then we came to a broad, tall-walled hallway with a huge photo mural of pastoral mountain-meadow scene on the wall. We walked down that hall, then entered another door, traversed another flight of stairs and came upon a uniformed man with Asian features. He and I shook hands.

My guide took me up one more flight of stairs, then ushered me through a door into a long room stretching across the width of the ship, fronted by an equally long line of windows looking down upon the bow and the icy sea in front of us.

The first person I spotted was  Rear Admiral Peterson, who had been so stone-cold when I first tried to talk him into bringing me along. He stared at me in disbelief. I felt more than a little awkward. Here he was, a Rear Admiral of great power, decked out in fine dress blues. Most of the Soviets I had seen were also sharply dressed.

Here I was, wearing a few layers of well beat, well worn Arctic gear, holes in the outer fabric of my parka, and my insulated pants were frayed, and splotched in the many places where they had been bleached by salt water.

"My mother always told me, `where there's a will, there's a way,'" I greeted him.

He threw back his head, laughed out loud in a way I would not have imagined him capable of from my previous, limited experience. "Welcome aboard!" he said. The interpreter came to see what the levity was all about. She looked at me and then laughed aloud, too.

Captain McClelland was also in the room along with the ships captain and some crew. One sat on an elevated platform with a panel sporting an array of swtiches and levers in front of him. There was no wheel, as such, but he was the steersman. Other instruments in the room sported large computer screens. 

I looked out the window upon an amazing sight. I could see the bow, charging into the ice. The CNN crew stood at the front, camera pointed at breaking ice, but soon turned to walk back to the structure that I was now in. As they did, the cameraman slipped and fell. I shot some pictures, but wondered if I could get on the roof, so I would not have to shoot through the windows.

Once on the roof, I encountered AP's Jack Smith and his reporter. His jaw dropped and angry look came upon his face. He was not happy to see me. He thought he had an exclusive, that he would be the only photographer in the world to cover this critical segment of the rescue. He protested, then realized he could do nothing about it. He then asked me if I would take a picture of him with his camera. I did. 

The Makarov had been moving fast, but soon shuddered to a stop. It had encountered a huge pressure ridge. It took a few minutes to back up, then charged forward again. It broke the ridge to rubble and continued through.  I went down to the bow, took the place formerly occupied by CNN and shot from there. Sadly, somewhere on that ship, I lost a roll of exposed film. The pictures from the bow must have been on it.

Eventually, as the ice grew heavier and heavier, the Arseniev pulled out from the Makarov's path. Then, working parallel to each other, the two ships began to cut out huge sections of ice. They still had many hours to go before they reached the ridges that blocked the whales.

I left my shooting spot on the bow to further explore the deck and soon came upon the fellow who had been standing at the door to the helicopter when we landed. We photographed each other simultaneously, then he gestured to me to come over. He opened a door, and beckoned me to follow. He appeared to be a common seaman. I was a little worried about what might happen if I followed him through the door, but, being there, I had to find out. 

We went down several flights of stairs, into a hallway, past several doors, and then through a door into a bunk room. There was a little table inside with some hard bread on it, and some tiny cans, a large glass bottle, with a couple of chairs off to the side. There were two other men in there, and, much to my surprise, a most attractive young woman with blond hair.

We had been in the room for but a few seconds when several more sailors poured in. I understood then that my escort had gone up top with the sole purpose of fetching an American to present to his immediate shipmates. They motioned for to take my coat off, so I peeled off three layers, and laid them across a bunk. Maybe that's when I lost my roll of exposed film. I placed my camera bag on top of them. I wanted to take pictures, but it felt to me like I should wait a bit, allow them to grow more comfortable with me. 

We introduced ourselves. About half of them were named Sasha. The woman was Lora - L-O-R-A, she wrote out the spelling for me. They all called either Moscow or Leningrad as home. All appeared to be in their mid-twenties to late thirties.

None of them spoke English, though one Sasha must have had a course at some point in his life. He knew some words. While I could see no evidence that any of these sailors held any rank over the others, Sasha obviously occupied the alpha role. He also had a special relationship with the woman; whether she was his wife or his girlfriend never became clear to me.

"Coffee?" Sasha asked. A seaman filled the large jar, bigger than a gallon, about three quarters full of water, and then suspended some kind of electronic heating ring into it. The tiny cans each contained about four ounces of coffee syrup, which came out to one serving when poured into a cup, mixed with hot water.

It would take a long, long, time for the water to heat up. In the meantime, we had to figure out how to communicate. My hosts would speak Russian words, accompanied by elaborate hand gestures, deliberate speech, and earnestness. It seemed like they figured that if they spoke slowly and deliberately enough I would understand. I would try the same technique and so we spoke slowly, emphatically and deliberately to each other, understanding nothing.

"Bill," the main Sasha would suddenly say, a thoughtful look on his face. He would then launch into some question, which I could not grasp. Finally, he pointed at me, then held his hand, palm down, a short distance above the floor. I realized he had just asked if I had children. Yes, I nodded, then held five fingers up.

"Five?" He responded with his own fingers and a bit of a surprised look on his face. "Five," I nodded.

"Goood," he spoke, then shook his head approvingly. A murmur of approval spread throughout the group, all of whom rocked their heads in slow, definite nods of approval, accompanied by thoughtful looks, their lower lips jutted slightly further out than the upper.

We spoke more gibberish to each other for a minute or so, then the woman whispered something to Sasha. A thoughtful look crossed his face, followed by a nod. He then thrust one finger into the air.

"Present," he said. "Have present." The woman disappeared, but soon returned, hiding something behind her back. 

Lora smiled shyly, then handed me a little wooden doll roughly the shape of a bowling pin. A peasant woman and flower decoration had been very nicely painted onto it. It had a seam in the middle, so I opened it up and pulled out a similar doll. Inside it was another, and another, and finally, a very tiny baby-like one. Five in all -one for each of my children.

"Present," another Sasha, said. He handed me a black, leather fur hat. I put it on my head, but it was too small. "Get bigger," he said. He took it back, and came back with another. I placed it on my head, and could detect no difference in size. He looked troubled. His crewmates looked troubled. "Find bigger." Now they all scurried about, until finally the gifter came up with a third hat.

"Bigger," he said, as he motioned for me to try it on. I did. It fit exactlly the same as the first two. He looked at me, very thoughtfully, thrust his lower lip out slightly further than his upper, and nodded a slow, deliberate nod of approval. "Goood."

Everybody nodded approval. "Gooood! Goooood!" I nodded approval. "All right," I said. What could I know give back? I had not even thought such a matter. I had a $50 dollar folding Buck knife in my pocket. No, I couldn't give that. It was a fine knife, of the highest quality. On the Arctic Slope, a good knife is indispensable. I couldn't give up that knife.

But... why not? Fifty bucks? They had already given me something worth more than $50: their goodwill and friendship. I pulled the knife out of my pocket, and opened it up. I could see they were impressed. Sasha picked it up, and took a look at it, while Sasha watched from one corner, and from the other corner, Sasha looked on. This was the original Sasha, the one who sat by the pretty woman.

He nodded very slowly, very approvingly, with a serious, scrutinizing look upon his face. "I take it," he said.

He sat back down by the woman and they consulted among themselves a bit. Then, he pulled a folding knife out of his own pocket. It had about a 3.5 inch blade, along with a saw blade, made out of what, compared to the buck knife, was cheap, soft, steel. The handle appeared to be some type of imitation bone or antler, and had been hand carved. The blade had been honed and rehoned many times and when I tested it later, was quite sharp.

"Good knife," he said. "Saw," he pulled out the little saw, motioning back and forth. "Good."

I took it.

What could I trade next? "Coins," someone said. Of course. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out all the change I had, which included about three quarters, some nickels, a couple of dimes and a few pennies. I held my hand out flat. They all crowded around. Sasha took a quarter, as did Sasha, while Sasha carefully picked up a nickel, looked at it intently, shook his head in approval, and pocketed it.

The non-Sasha's took the rest. In return, everybody handed me coins of different denominations. One gave me a pin, which he managed to let me know symbolized their mission in the Arctic. That reminded me that I had picked up a couple of pins a couple days before at the search and rescue hangar, and had put them in the pocket of my black jacket.

I retreived the jacket, found only one pin, and gave it to him. One fellow looked forlorn, left out. He hadn't done very good on the coin exhange, and had received nothing else. I retreived my new camera case that I had paid to have flown up from Anchorage to replace the one I put into the ocean through the long whale hole. I dug out a roll of T-Max 3200, still in the Kodak box, and handed it to him. He beamed.

It seemed I was now out of trade goods. I stood there, thinking about it. I still had on my Arctic pants, but they were loose and opened up, exposing my Levi's and belt below. Sasha, the leader, noticed the Levi's and the belt buckle. It was a brass buckle, with a bidarka (kayak-like Unangan boat) on it, a man paddling and the words, "Ounalashka Corporation, Unalaska, Alaska."

It was a gift to me from Vincent Tutiakoff, the president of the Ounalashka Native village corporation. He had presented it to me inside his home in Unalaska. I loved the buckle. It was my favorite of all time - but what the hell. I reached down and started to unsnap it from my belt. "No!" Sasha screamed thrusting his palms out and down in protest. "No!" I kept going. "No! No!" a couple of others joined in the chorus.

The woman looked startled, but curious to see what would happen next. Then I pulled the buckle free from my belt and held it up. A sigh of relief fell over the entire room. Sasha looked the buckle over and fingered it with obvious admiration. He pointed out the Unangan paddler to his mates. "I take it," he said.

Then he disapeared and came back with a belt, with many holes, made to fit many sizes of men, including some very, very big men. He wanted me to have that belt, and he mine. I realized then that the buckle would not attach to any of the Russian belts.

So I took my belt off, gave it to him and I put on the Russian belt.

Sasha then expressed the idea of American bills, but, alas, I had none. They wanted to give me a bottle of vodka for any kind of bill - even a one dollar bill. I didn't have a single bill on me. I regretted it, for I wanted to leave with a bottle of Russian Vodka which, right now, would be sitting unopened on display on one of my office shelves.

Now, I felt comfortable enough to try and take some photos. I got the idea across, and pulled out the old body, with a 24 mm lens. The camera was still too cold. It fogged and frosted right up. I cleaned it off, a few times, but it was hopeless, so I set it aside for a spell.

By then, the water was hot. Was I hungry? Yes. The woman brought me several pieces of fresh and very tasty bread, and a plate, one half covered with rice, the other half with meat cut into chunks and basted in gravy. It was cold, but tasty.

Finally, the fog cleared from my lens. I took a few pictures. The story continues, right up to the point where we were stripping down to go into the sauna as the Big Bird descended onto the Makarov, but I can't let this post go on forever. Probably 75 percent of my readers will take a look at the word length of this post and then click away on to another. 

It was growing dark by the time the we landed in Barrow, where we were greeted by a customs agent, flown up for this very purpose. The Soviet ships were considered part of the Soviet Union and so we were treated as though we had visited foreign soil. 

All my trade goods got through. I was happy, elated - on a spiritual high, even.

Morris had accompanied us on the return. After we cleared customs and he found a moment to talk to me out of earshot of the others, he let me know that even with the rotors turning, he could have yanked me off the helicopter. He let me know how unhappy he was with me for defying his order to stay on shore. For the remainder of the rescue, he would treat me badly, shun me, literally not speak to me, even when I asked a question. He would ignore, turn his eyes away from me. When the opportunities arose, he would do all he could to hinder my work.

He would almost completely succeed at keeping the North Slope Borough helicopters off-limits to me. I could get around just fine with them, but the aerial shot I had envisioned from the proper angle and height of the whale holes stretching out across miles of ice would never materialize for me.

It was okay, though. I had gotten onto the icebreakers. No harm nor hindrance had come of it, but good had. In a tiny way, I had done my part to help melt that ice curtain that had so long stood between two great nations separated by a mere three miles, with the same Native people living on either side. Connections were made between supposed Cold War enemies that would not otherwise have been made. I had a new set of friends in this world - Soviets - not mean, nasty, evil communists, but fellow human beings, just like me. Odds are, we would never again see each other, but we would remember each other throughout all our sentient days.

In my house, there is a pocket knife that I never use; a Russian fur hat that is too small to fit upon my head; a brightly painted wooden doll of a kind that has now become common in Alaska, but was rare then - a doll containing dolls to represent each of my children. Hidden away in a secret place is a stash of Soviet coins. I will never spend them.

p> 

Complete series index:

Part 1: Context bowhead hunt

Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik

Part 3: Scouting trip

Part 4: NBC on the ice

Part 5: To rescue or euthanize

Part 6: Governor Cowper, ice punch, chainsaw holes

Part 7: Malik provides caribou for dinner

Part 8: CNN learns home is sacred place

Part 9: World's largest jet; Screw Tractor

Part 10: Think like a whale

Part 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik

Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers

Part 13: Malik walks with whales, says goodbye

Part 14: Rescue concludes

Part 15: Epilogue

The movie, Big Miracle, and what I witnessed in real life, part 5: to rescue or euthanize; the struggle to take a breath; Minnesotans

With a significant amount of hard work by a small band of Iñupiat whale hunters, a couple of NSB wildlife biologists and a NOAA official, the three trapped gray whales ended the day with bigger pools, cleared of slush and debris, to breathe in. This would prove to be a very temporary situation. They were set at least for the night - and this would be the night that whaling captains, biologists and a NOAA official would meet to discuss the options - rescue or euthanize.

In the evening, Arnold Brower Sr. called the Barrow Whaling Captains together and the meeting to order. Don Oliver and his NBC crew waited in the hall, to see if they might be granted permission to enter. Some of the whalers wanted to keep them out, but Arnold Sr. disagreed. He had been a whale hunter all his life and had also spent much of his youth herding and following reindeer across the tundra.

He had served as an Army Paratrooper in the Pacific in World War II and had then been recruited by the Navy who needed his expertise on the land as they set out to establish the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska. Arnold Sr. had been active in the lands claim movement that preceded the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 and afterward had become chairman of the Ukpeagvik Iñupiat Corporation - the ANCSA village corporation of Barrow.

Through all this, he had captained one of the most consistently successful whaling crews in Barrow and had been active in the fight to keep the traditional bowhead hunt alive after the International Whaling Commission and the US government had misguidedly tried to shut it down, based on faulty information, in 1977.

Arnold Brower Sr. knew the value of good PR. He knew media snubbed was dangerous media. Plus, he did not feel the whalers had anything to hide. He was proud of his way of life. It had sustained his Iñupiat ancestors for thousands of years. He wanted it to sustain his descendants for at least thousands more. His argument to let NBC cover the meeting prevailed. The captains invited them in.

Arnold led the discussion and there was was no talk of mercy killing - but only on what might be done to help the whales. Arnold spoke of the habits of different whales, how in conditions such as those that had trapped the gray whales, belugas would follow bowheads to safety, but gray whales would not.

He speculated about what might happen if the whalers were to cut a path to open water for the whales. Would the whales use it? Would they save themselves or just get themselves into trouble all over again? There was only one way to find out - for the hunters to give the whales a chance.

Ben Nageak, then director of the North Slope Borough Wildlife Management Department, sits to Brower's side.

Arnold Brower Jr. gave his report to the meeting. Although the efforts of Geoff Carroll and Craig George to have the Coast Guard send in a ship with icebreaking capabilities had failed - due to the lack of any ice breaker in Alaska Arctic waters, to the east, the Alaska oil industry had also taken an interest in the whales.

VECO, then the major provider of oil field services at Prudhoe Bay, volunteered to send a giant hoverbarge to break open a path for the whales. Towed by a Sikorski Skycrane - a giant, elongated, helicopter designed to hoist huge loads - the hoverbarge rides on a cushion of forced air, breaking the ice beneath it. The Alaska National Guard had agreed to provide a Skyscrane.

Arnold Jr. was in favor of giving the barge a chance. Should it fail, he believed the whalers themselves could make a path to open water. Since the time he was a small boy, Arnold had been an active member of his father's crew, often times assuming charge when his father could not be out.

Arnold Jr. had helped when, using ropes, hooks, and holes cut into ice, hunters had dragged a whale caught by Luther Leavitt Sr. beneath a broad stretch of slush ice, new ice and old glacial ice until they reached stable, anchored ice strong enough to haul the whale up onto. He had once seen a whale pulled out from under ice 20 feet thick. "So the answer was already there in my mind, how we could do this," he later told me.

In the afternoon, after the group led by Arnold Jr. had finished enlarging and cleaning the two whale holes, one had commented that it was now time to get ready to go to the meeting and present their observations and thoughts to the whaling captains so that they could decide what to do.

Morris emphatically interrupted to stress it was not the decision of the Barrow Whaling Captains to make, but of the federal goverment. He was the arm of the federal government - the final decision would be his.

To me, the idea of putting a bureaucrat from the city in authority over Iñupiats on the ice in a matter that involved whales did not seem like a good one. Why couldn't the federal government have handled this similar to the way it handles the bowhead hunt? There, it claims ultimate authority but through a cooperative agreement with the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, recognizes the knowledge, right and ability of Alaska Eskimo hunters to manage their hunt under guidelines reached in a cooperative agreement between the United States government, the International Whaling Commission and AEWC itself.

To me, it seemed a similar arrangement here would have made sense. The hunters had a depth of knowledge of the ocean, the ice, and the ways of whales that Morris never could have - and they had a close working relationship with and mutual respect for the biologists from NSB Wildlife Management. They were the only ones who would ever really know what was going on out on the ice. 

Yet, in its wisdom, the federal government had asserted control and had made Morris the authority in charge. He had so far proven amiable, friendly and willing to listen, so perhaps it would work out all right.

At the end of the discussion, the Barrow Whaling Captains agreed - the whalers and the biologists would keep the breathing holes open long enough to give the hoverbarge time to clear a path to them.

Ron Morris also agreed - but set a deadline of Tuesday, three days hence, to complete that task. He did not state what he would do if that deadline were not met.

The next day dawned cold and kept growing colder - before the day ended, the temperature would settle in at -17 F. (-22 C). "You wouldn't believe the conversations I have with my superiors in Washington, DC." Morris told several of us as we shared a car ride to the North Slope Borough Search and Rescue Hangar, where we would catch a helicopter ride to the whale holes. 

Ronald Reagan was serving his final months in office. The presidential election between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis would take place in less than a month - yet interest in the presidential race was being eclipsed by the media attention being given to the whales. 

"The President wants these whales saved," Morris told us. "Whatever it takes, he wants them out of the ice holes and set free. Ronald Reagan wants to go out of office as an environmentalist." Morris stressed that he was speaking confidentially for now and then told us a Soviet icebreaker was operatng about 350 miles to the north. High US officials had contacted high Soviet Union officals to see if the Soviets might send the icebreaker to help free the whales. 

Above: Ron Morris and Alaska National Guard Colonel Tom Carroll walk toward the whale holes. I do not recall who the person behind them is.

Morris, Colonel Carroll and NBC's Don Oliver observe the whales. The holes were rapidly shrinking and freezing over - but the whalers would soon clear them.

A couple of other TV crews had arrived and I had observed that before going on air, their correspondents would remove their hats. The instant they would go off air, they would hurriedly pull their hats over their heads again, muttering and complaining, worried that they might be about to lose an ear to frostbite.

NBC's Don Oliver now did the same. Here he is - camera rolling.

Here he is, moments after going off-camera. 

Through the NSB TV studio, the North Slope Borough also aired its own informational program, under the direction of Marie Carroll, center. North Slope Borough Planning Director Warren Matumeak was serving as Acting Mayor and so explained what was happening and spoke about the Borough's role in supporting the rescue effort. Biologists Carroll and George also took their turn in front of the camera.

This is Crossbeak, the largest of the three, so named for the odd way the top and bottom of its mouth come together. The next largest was Bonnet. In my last post, I mentioned how the small whale that had inches of nose bone exposed had been given the nickname, "Bone."

Their Iñupiaq names were Siku, Poutu and Kannick.

This is Bonnet. Bonnet's name came from the formation of barnacles seen between the blow holes, at the back.

Bonnet, ready to take a breath.

Please note the litte chunks of ice immediately freeze in Bonnet's exhalation.

Bonnet - breathing. Every sentient individual in the world can relate to the need to breathe, and to the horror at the prospect of having breath cut off. Perhaps this helps to explain why, when the people of the world saw these whales struggling to keep their access to breath open, there was such an outpouring of concern, sympathy - and most of all:

Empathy.

Among those moved by the struggle of the whales to breathe were two men in Minnesota. Rick Skluzacek's father had invented a deicer and had formed a company called Kasco Marine to market it. The deicer was used primarily to keep boats docked in Minnesota Lakes ice free. Skluzacek got a call from his brother-in-law, Greg Ferrian, who suggested they volunteer to take their deicers to Barrow so the rescuers could use them to keep the whale holes open.

They first contacted Ron Morris, but he dismissed them as kooks and would have nothing to do with them. So they headed to Barrow at their own expense. Once they arrived, Morris dismissed them again. He did not want to be bothered by them.

Fortunately, Ferrian and Skluzacek soon met these two - Craig George and Geoff Carroll, who kept detailed field notes on all that they observed with the whales. Among the knowledge they gathered - the whales took 1.6 breaths per minute on average. When Skluzacek and Ferrian told them about their deicers, they were interested.

If there was a chance the deicers would give the whales the opportunity to keep breathing, they wanted to give them a try.

The biogists made arrangements to have Skluzacek and Ferrian helicoptered to the site that night. It had been a tough day at the whale holes. Cold - with a wind that kept a steady drift of snow flying at the surface of the ice. The holes would catch snow from that drift. Once in the water, it would instantly turn to slush, then ice.

Before the Minnesotans could come to the one remaining hole, they had to make some preparations at the SAR hangar. With my friend, UPI reporter Jeff Berliner on the back, I snowmachined ahead of them to the site.  Berliner had come to Barrow from Anchorage to cover the rescue and had bunked down with me in the half-quonset hut I rented at NARL - the former Naval Arctic Research Laboratory - three miles north of Barrow.

Above us, the northern lights danced across the sky in green curtains, tinged red and blue. When we arrived at the site ahead of the others, we saw something very curious - a tent, pitched maybe 200 yards away on land, glowing red from the lamp burning inside it.

Curious as to who might be in that tent, we headed towards it, but as we traveled the distance did not close. Puzzled, we stopped. The tent began to change shape, then to rise above the horizon. It was not a tent at all, but the waxing, three-quarter moon.

Such are the optical illusions of the Arctic.

We returned to the whales. It looked exceedingly bad for them. One hole had completely closed. The other had shrunk dramatically and was closing fast. The whales were taking faster, shorter, breaths than before. Bone would sometimes roll onto his side, the way a fish does when it is dying. 

The biologists soon arrived, this time accompanied by NSB Senior Scientist Dr. Tom Albert, Ferrian and Skluzacek. Working in the cold, it took a short while to get the generators going, but not long. Soon, electricity flowed into a deicer, attached to a four-foot long styrofoam platform. The deicer propeller began to churn warmer water from below up to the surface.

We watched in amazement as chunks of ice and slush that only moments before had been ready to rob the whales of their breath melted rapidly away. Bonnet then slid through the newly cleared water, right up to the small group of biologists and Minnesotans. To me, it looked the whale understood what had just happened. To me, it looked like the whale had just said, "thank you."

Maybe I am anthropomorphizing and the whale had said no such thing - but that's what it looked liked to me... what it felt like.

One of the more dramatic and fun scenes in the movie Big Miracle is based on this incident. The scene is an exaggeration of what really happened. The real temperature this night was probably close to - 20 F. It was much colder in the movie. For me, it was both oddly fun and strangely funny to see the John Krasinski character get a visual exclusive of the dramatic event as his colleagues feasted back in Barrow in the warmth of Amigos Mexican restaurant. In truth, there was a visual exclusive, captured while I suspect most of my colleagues were feasting at Pepe's North of the Border Mexican Restaurant. Given what the Iñupiat have taught me about not boasting, I feel a little guilty to point this out, but, the picture above is the real visual exclusive of the Minnesotans, the biolgists, and a gray whale at the moment the bubbler went into action. 

From this point on, the deicers would be known as "bubblers."

Had the Minnesotans not believed in themselves and their product enough to not be daunted by Morris's rejection but had instead come at their own expense, and had Carroll and Craig not been open to giving the bubblers a try, the rescue may well have ended, right here.

Big problems remained.

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Complete series index:

Part 1: Context bowhead hunt

Part 2: Roy finds the whales; Malik

Part 3: Scouting trip

Part 4: NBC on the ice

Part 5: To rescue or euthanize

Part 6: Governor Cowper, ice punch, chainsaw holes

Part 7: Malik provides caribou for dinner

Part 8: CNN learns home is sacred place

Part 9: World's largest jet; Screw Tractor

Part 10: Think like a whale

Part 11: Portrait: Billy Adams and Malik

Part 12: Onboard Soviet icebreakers

Part 13: Malik walks with whales, says goodbye

Part 14: Rescue concludes

Part 15: Epilogue