Gordon Lightfoot Forums - Be Kind to Whales Week (Big Blue)

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Whidbey Island Life
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Be kind to whales and other living things week

Humpback whale near Race Rocks Lighthouse on Race Rocks
off Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Photo by Sue Frause.

I don't know who decides or proclaims when it's a special week, but I just did.

Be kind to whales and other living things week

I heard the sad news this morning about the California gray whale harpooned and shot with a machine gun off the Washington coast.

Gray whale sightings are common off Whidbey Island when they cruise up here to feed on ghost shrimp in the spring.

Years ago, before the Internet, people would phone each other and say, "The whales are in town!"

These days, you can report sightings to the Orca Network and also find out where the whales are in our area.

And Langley now plays host to the Welcome the Whales Day Parade and Festival in April.

In the good news category, last month five blue whales were spotted by a scientific whale watching expedition near the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia.

In honor of all species of whales, here's a song Canadian troubadour Gordon Lightfoot wrote in 1972 called Ode To Big Blue.

The oceans of the world were the home of Big Blue
He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew
And the place that he loved best
Was the waters to the west
Around the blue Pacific he did roam

Big Blue moved alone for a mighty blue was he
And the battles of the whales was an awesome sight to see
And he took them one by one and he drove them all away
In the mating of the day he was the king

Big Blue had fifty wives and he sired forty sons
Though most of them feel victim to the cruel harpoon guns
Ah but he was too much wise to get caught by the gunners' eyes
And so he lived at sea a hundred years

His mouth was as large as a tunnel so they say
His hide was thick as leather and his eyes quick and small
And his back was all scarred by the times he got away
And he knew the smell of whalers did big blue

Big Blue passed away to his natural decay
Beside the Arctic Circle as he travelled up that way
And there never was a man who was born with a gunner's hand
Who ever took a pan to Big Blue

Now the gray whale has run and the sperm is almost done
The finbacks and the Greenland rights have all passed and gone
They've been taken by the men for the money they could spend
And the killing never ends, it just goes on

The oceans of the earth were the home of Big Blue
He was the greatest monster that the world ever knew
And the place that he loved best was the waters to the west
Around the blue Pacific he did roam

Posted by Sue Frause at September 9, 2007 11:39 a.m.