Big Miracle (16 page)

Plowden knew the International Whaling Commission's rules on the subsistence hunt allowed the Eskimos to kill any whales they could catch even though they ate only bowhead. He was afraid the Eskimos might claim the whales before anyone tried to rescue them. He wanted Cindy to find out if there were any plans to kill the whales to fill their quota.

In his long fight against subsistence whaling, Campbell Plowden knew as much as anyone about the practice and thought it awful. The ardent whale advocate knew the Eskimos were not subsistence hunters at all. He was right. Missile launchers, time-released bombs, and outboard motors did not bear much resemblance to pre-modern whaling. Plowden couldn't understand how Barrow with its $80-million high school and $400-million Utilidor water system could even be allowed to call itself a “subsistence village.” As for Barrowans, they couldn't grasp how a highly paid K Street liberal lobbyist 7,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., got off trying to tell them how they could and could not live their lives.

Cindy called Geoff and Craig back and asked them if they knew of any local plans to harvest the three whales. The biologists confessed that even if there were plans, they would likely hear nothing of them. Barrow's newcomers often charged the locals with furtively keeping to themselves, particularly when dealing with one with environmental leanings.

The IWC delegated authority to regulate the local hunt to its local subsidiary, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC). Craig called the AEWC office in Barrow to see if there was any talk of harvesting the trapped whales. Craig learned that yes, in fact, there was such interest. A few local captains had asked for permission to harvest them. A meeting was scheduled for 7:30
P.M.
Saturday October 15, in a classroom at Barrow High School to hear the request.

Craig was surprised. After three days with the stranded whales, he couldn't help but feel attached to the helpless giants. These creatures had struggled against fantastic odds to survive as long as they had. His boss always reminded him never to get emotionally involved. Why did he feel so attached to three whales foolish enough to strand themselves under the growing Arctic ice? Craig knew that if presented with data on the stranding in the abstract, he would say the whales' death was a good thing: natural selection, survival of the fittest, a cleansing of the gene pool. But knowing the whales as well as he did, Craig suffered with them. He wasn't thrilled with a thought of a few greedy hunters harvesting three whales that no one wanted or would use.

Craig called Cindy and told her that the whales' fate would be decided at a special meeting the next night in Barrow. Cindy was on the move again. The national interest in the whales could only improve their chances, she reassured Craig. She told him to tell NBC's Don Oliver about the meeting. Maybe he would cover it. It was the same tactic human rights campaigners used to aid political prisoners in repressive lands, Cindy explained. The more people on the Outside who knew about the whales, the more pressure they could put on the Eskimos to spare them.

Rarely did such meetings deny whalers permission to harvest. Cindy and her allies had less than twenty-four hours to mount a campaign effective enough to block the Eskimos. If the committee voted to approve the request, the whales would be killed the next afternoon, right after church. The defiant whalers didn't yet understand the power of a few Outside television cameras. The Outsiders were always giving Barrowans a hard time about their whaling. What business was it of theirs anyway? In fact, if the meeting went as planned, some whalers would probably offer to take Dan Oliver and Russ Weston on their ski machines to film the kill.

Since she planned to take the rest of the week off, Cindy arranged to remodel Greenpeace's Anchorage office. They were busy with buzz saws and power drills and she couldn't get any work done there even if she wanted to. She holed herself up in Kevin's H Street condo and started working the phone. The simplest way to free the whales was to have a ship come in and break the ice. Campbell Plowden told her he would try to find an icebreaker from Washington while she should use her Alaska contacts.

She called Alaska Governor Steve Cowper's Juneau office. Cindy called the governor's deputy chief, David Ramseur. Sometimes he helped, more often he didn't. Cindy voiced an impassioned appeal as she told Ramseur the story of the trapped whales. Environmental activism was a lot like sales. Cindy had to convince the people in power that taking action was worth the investment in political capital.

She enticed Ramseur with some tempting political bait. If the governor could use his influence to get the Coast Guard to dispatch an icebreaker to Barrow, Cindy promised that the first-term Democrat would win brownie points from Alaska's small but noisy environmental crowd. Ramseur was unmoved after listening to Cindy's offer. “What do you want us to do?” he asked. “I'm not interested and the governor's not interested.”

From previous dealings with the governor's top aide, Cindy knew Ramseur had an impatient streak that didn't mix well with her hunger for action. Instead of trying to reason with him, Cindy upset him more by barking back. While her mind told her that aggravating him was counterproductive, she went on. She knew she had lost this round. Cindy promised Ramseur she would find other means to save the three whales. Ramseur didn't want Cindy to hang up mad. He offered to listen with so long as neither he nor the Governor could be used to lure others into promising help.

Cindy's phone rang again. It was the wife of an oil executive who made Cindy promise never to identify her. Cindy jokingly called her “Jane Whale.” Ms. Whale asked if she knew anything about those whales that appeared on NBC News the night before. When Cindy said she knew quite a lot about the whales, Jane Whale was thrilled.

“You see,” she said, “I know a way we can get them out.” Cindy's back straightened as she pressed the phone closer to her ear. The woman on the other end of the line said she knew Pete Leathard, the president of VECO, Inc., Alaska's largest oil construction company which had a huge operation at Prudhoe Bay. Jane told Cindy that Leathard saw Brokaw's broadcast the night before and was so moved by the pictures of the whales that he wanted his company to help save them.

“How can
he
help us?” Cindy asked, unable to disguise her contempt. Why would an oilman, the enemy and her moral inferior, be interested in helping three trapped whales. Only her likes were enlightened enough to love animals. It must be a stunt, a hoax, or a PR ploy, thought the master of PR ploys.

“No, no,” the woman tried to reassure her. “Leathard's serious.”

Jane told Cindy that VECO owned an ice-breaking hoverbarge built to supply construction materials to build offshore oil rigs in the Arctic. For all the accepted wisdom about the oilman's greed, little attention was paid to the risk that same man was willing to take to provide more oil to an expanding industrial economy. Unlike in warmer climes, drilling offshore in the Arctic is only possible during the short summer season when the ice cap thaws enough to even permit exploratory drilling, with the average cost of each sunk well—successful or dry—about $200 million.

Mukluk Island was just such an example. In 1984, amid predictions of a great discovery, three oil companies joined forces to build the only platform then stable enough to withstand the shifting ice and harsh winds of the frozen Arctic Ocean. The hoverbarge supplied materials used to build Mukluk Island, a man-made gravel island in the middle of the Beaufort Sea. At the time, Mukluk Island was the biggest and most expensive oil rig ever built, costing nearly $2 billion. All they struck was seawater. Its failure marked the end of North Slopes drilling activity for nearly two decades.

The $4-million hoverbarge commissioned to manage the ill-fated enterprise was but a rounding error of the dry well. Leathard was sure the barge could cut through Barrow's ice. It was designed to float on a cushion of air and to break through the thick ice by displacing water under it. Since it was of no use, Leathard thought VECO's chairman and founder Billy Bob Allen wouldn't object to lending it to the rescuers in Barrow.

If Allen had any doubts, Leathard thought he could assuage them by pointing to the national news coverage of the story, guaranteeing VECO some exposure. The “industry,” needed positive publicity. An oil company helping rescue three stranded whales was like money in the bank. Leathard was convinced the hoverbarge would work and was determined to prove it.

Jane Whale told Cindy that all Leathard needed was a helicopter powerful enough to pull the 200,000-pound barge out of its frozen berth. The barge sank a few feet deep into the thawed permafrost during the Arctic summer, freezing it deeper into the ground each winter. Cindy's contact needed help locating a helicopter suitable for towing the barge 270 miles northwest to where the whales were stranded.

“The only type of helicopter that can pull a load that big is the Skycrane,” she said. “A Sikorsky CH-54 Skycrane.”

“Well, where would I find one of those?” Cindy asked.

“The only people that have them in this state are the Air Force and the Alaska National Guard.”

“How long will all this take?” Cindy asked.

“Once you get the helicopter, VECO can have the barge in Barrow and the whales freed in forty hours,” Jane promised, who asked Cindy not to reveal her name. “Just trust me,” she pleaded. “VECO really wants to help.” She instructed Cindy not to call her unless it was urgent. Otherwise, she might have to withdraw the offer. As little as Cindy trusted VECO, the favor was more than returned.

Cindy hung up the phone puzzled. Why would an oil company want to help three whales? After fruitlessly trying to come up with reasons why the plan wouldn't work, Cindy realized she had no choice. She had to trust the bad guys. She didn't know how but Cindy would get that helicopter.

She called Dave Ramseur in the governor's office. She said an oil company would donate the use of its icebreaking hoverbarge to cut a path to freedom for the trapped whales. All they needed was the one time use of two Skycrane helicopters from the Alaska National Guard or the Air Force.

Ramseur told Cindy that no one in state government could help. As for every other oil-dependent state, 1988 was a bad year for Alaska. It walked a financial tightrope, and one false move could mean sending the state into recession. Tax revenues from oil companies were way down at the moment they were most needed. After the governor had asked Alaskans to bite the fiscal bullet, why would he spend his political clout on three nonvoting whales?

Only a few months earlier, Governor Cowper was roundly criticized for moving too slowly to rescue seven North Slope Eskimo walrus hunters trapped on a huge piece of ice that broke away from the shore and drifted out to sea. Ramseur correctly thought if the governor suddenly led a rescue effort on behalf of three animals after doing so little to save the lives of seven native Alaskans from Kotzebue, it would open him up to massive attack. (The walrus hunters were ultimately saved three weeks after they were stranded.)

Cindy lost her cool when Ramseur asked why she was so concerned about whales endangered not by man but by nature. Suffering is suffering, Cindy sniffed. She then reminded Ramseur that the whole country had collectively watched the 1987 rescue of a toddler named Jessica McClure from a well in Midland, Texas. Ramseur responded by suddenly remembering that the governor was out of town and couldn't be reached until Monday.

He laughed when Cindy asked him to request the assistance of Soviet icebreakers, invoking an obscure American Soviet maritime treaty. “The Coast Guard wouldn't even let us ask the Soviets for help when the Kotzebue hunters were trapped,” Ramseur snapped. “You actually think they're going to allow it for three whales?”

Cindy hung up more in anger than in sadness. She called Geoff and Craig for consolation. Ramseur wasn't lying when he said the governor was out of town. He was, in fact, in Barrow—right across the hall from Geoff and Craig, in the Naval Arctic Research Lab's hearing room. For Governor Steve Cowper, his initial refusal to help marked the last time he would be asked to take any part in the drama about to unfold. From that moment until the rescue was over, Governor Cowper was neither heard from nor consulted again.

But could anybody know that this otherwise unremarkable event would turn into one of Alaska's biggest news story since the big 1964 earthquake? That it would capture the imagination of millions around the earth? That it would come to involve both the President of the United States and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union? Had it not been for the real news of the the
Exxon Valdez
that spilled 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound just five months later, it might well have been the kind of blunder from which some politicians never recover.

Cowper fumbled the initial media attention that came with the rescue, but then so did everyone else. Friends couldn't connect with Cindy's despair that seemed to accompany her slightest failures. Her best political contact laid the facts bare. She could count on no help from them.

Cindy looked out her east window and gazed at the snow-covered Chugach Mountains. They seemed to stare right back at her. But it was a facade. The sun's orange afterglow lent the rugged mountains a warmth and peace that did not exist. Nothing in Alaska, Cindy mused, neither its nature nor its people, was as benign as it appeared. She thought about the three whales as if she already knew them. She had not even seen any of the pictures of three California grays. Yet she started to cry, the first of many tears to come. Kevin rolled his eyes.

It was 7
P.M.
on Friday, October 14, 1988, exactly one week after the whales were first found. Cindy Lowry was at her lowest ebb of the crisis. A man named Kent Burton was on the line. He identified himself as the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmospheres for the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was calling from his Washington home where it was 11
P.M
.