Big Miracle
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
In October 1988 an Inuit hunter saw three grey whales trapped in the frozen Arctic ocean near Barrow, an isolated Alaskan outpost. They were working together to keep their blow hole open, the two adolescents caring for the weaker baby. It was a poignant sight. Filmed by a local television reporter, this tiny regional news story snowballed into a global media frenzy.
In this gripping, insightful book Tom Rose describes how journalists poured into Barrow, all woefully ill equipped for the sub-zero temperatures, warming up on bootleg alcohol. As the locals cheerfully found ways to profit from the visitors, Greenpeace activist Cindy Lowry battled to mount an extraordinary rescue operation that would unite conservationists and oil companies, the Inuit and the military, President Reagan and the Kremlin.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rose presents the story of what might have been a nonevent: three gray whales become trapped beneath the spreading ice in an early Arctic freeze in September 1988. So many whales suffer the same fate each year, the mostly Eskimo residents of the nearby Alaskan settlement of Barrow find nothing unusual in the stranding. Yet when Eskimo whaler Roy Ahmoagak informs two scientists from the local wildlife center of the whales' plight, he sets off a media avalanche that descends on the tiny subsistence whaling village in a storm of flashbulbs and news helicopters. Soon, the nation is riveted to the story, and the rescue attempt known as Operation Breakthrough snowballs, taking on oil magnates, Greenpeace activists, Eskimos, the National Guard, and even the Soviets. The book is most compelling when it focuses on the simple drama of the whales' plight and the extraordinary lives the people of Barrow eke from the harsh elements; it's less interesting when it strays into anti big government polemics and caricatures of "limousine liberal" environmentalists. (Rose's day job is as a conservative talk radio host.) Yet by the end of the book, Rose's depictions of the prime players grows more nuanced, as he zeroes in on the surprising tale of how three creatures sparked a global effort that united warring factions in sheer awe at the bulky yet graceful denizens of this stark and little-understood world.
