‘We were out in the skin boat, paddling quietly so we wouldn’t spook the whales. My arms were tired. We all were. Then we saw a whale near an ice floe, moving strangely — up and down, tail and flippers on the ice, then back in the water. Our captain, Vincent Norell, said something wasn’t right. ‘We’re not approaching that one,’ he warned. So, we watched from a distance. The whale kept lifting himself onto the ice, then slipping back into the water, again and again. Then, finally, he scraped his belly across the ice and dove. And out came a baby bowhead. We sat there, silent, watching as the mother came back, lifted her flippers onto the ice, and gently swept the newborn into the water. It was the first time I ever saw a whale born — out there, in the Arctic, on the ice. Unreal.”

— George

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