Orcas On My Mind

When I tell people what my novel is about —a struggling punk rock chick trying to find the meaning of life—they look interested. But their eyebrows lift and their faces light up when I mention that a pod of orcas has a starring role.

What is it about these huge animals that draws people in? 

My own love affair with orcas began in 1997. Back then it was still considered a cool thing to train orcas to perform tricks in captivity, and I went with my young family to Sea World in Orlando. I oohed and aahed with the rest of the sweaty crowd when Shamu (not the original—I was disappointed to learn there were many imitators) swam around in her big blue tank. The climax came when she soaked the audience by raising her tail and bringing it down onto the surface of the water with a tremendous splash. Maybe it was her way of flipping (or flippering) us off!

I left there feeling a wave of awe with a strong undercurrentof sadness (see what I did there?). At the time, all I knew about orcas was what I could see—they were beautiful and too big to be kept in tanks the size of swimming pools. Even my kids understood the other issue: it was wrong to separate wild animals from their families.

We returned home to our small town on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State, the same neck of the woods where the novel is set. In October of that year, orcas swam into my life again and in a big way. Nineteen members of the L-Pod, one of three pods that make up the Southern Resident orcas who migrate through Puget Sound every year, followed a trail of breadcrumbs (salmon in this case) and ended up where they didn't belong—Dyes Inlet, a small body of water many miles off their usual course. 

Their presence stirred our world up for a while. I wasn't the only one whale watching from the shore in the pouring rain day after day. If I'd had a boat I would have joined the mob scene on the water for a closer look. 

The experience of spending time getting to know those whales affected me deeply, and a seed of an idea for a story planted itself in my brain where it lay dormant for 35 years. And then like Jack and his magic beans, it grew into fully-fledged, printed and bound novel overnight! Poof! 

Orcas remain my favorite animal. What's yours?

In my previous article I shared what inspired me to write a novel with whales in the center of the action. The short answer is: they’re cool! And in 1997, a pod of these cool mammals showed up on my doorstep. In the 27 years since, two things happened that led me to where I am now, with a finished novel under my belt.

First, the rhythm of my days changed drastically. Back then, I worked full time as a middle school teacher and my children were young. Not only was I not carving out time to write, but I barely made time to read. Or breathe. Now my children are adults, and I have left my career behind. My time is my own and I spend most of it writing.

Second, the Earth’s climate has changed dramatically. Because of this, orcas and creatures of all kinds—humans included—are on a fast track to extinction. (Yikes! A bit of doom and gloom today.) My novel is set before we understood just how much trouble we were in.  It creates a hindsight snapshot of our ignorance about the forces already in motion and our awakening to the negative impact we humans have on the environment. My novel is timely, but it’s not a book with a mission—preaching and scolding. My concerns about climate change are there between the lines because they weigh heavily on my mind.

In the fall of 1997 when In the Company of Whales is set, there were 98 Southern Resident orcas, 19 of which came to hang out for a while near my home. According to the Center for Whale Research 2024 census, the count has dropped to 73, and they are currently on the endangered list. 

Many factors are at play, but I fear that we aren’t doing enough to address climate change.  Back then we called it “global warming,” a term first used by geochemist William Broecker in a paper published in 1975. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the term became popular, and later Al Gore’s 2006 book and documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” drove home the point that human activities were the primary cause.

I don’t have any answers, but I’ll leave you with a hopeful quote:

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” - Dr. Jane Goodall