Island of the Blue Dolphins

3

The wide beds of kelp which surround our island on three sides come close to the shore and spread out to sea for a distance of a league. In these deep beds, even on days of heavy winds, the Aleuts hunted. They left the shore at dawn in their skin canoes and did not return until night, towing after them the slain otter.

The sea otter, when it is swimming, looks like a seal, but is really very different. It has a shorter nose than a seal, small webbed feet instead of flippers, and fur that is thicker and much more beautiful. It is also different in other ways. The otter likes to lie on its back in the kelp beds, floating up and down to the motion of the waves, sunning itself or sleeping They are the most playful animals in the sea.

It was these creatures that the Aleuts hunted for their pelts.

From the cliff I could see the skin canoes darting here and there over the kelp beds, barely skimming the water, and the long spears flying like arrows. At dark the hunters brought their catch into Coral Cove, and there on the beach the animals were skinned and fleshed. Two men, who also sharpened the spears, did this work, labouring far into the night by the light of seaweed fires. In the morning the beach would be strewn with carcasses, and the waves red with blood.

Many of our tribe went to the cliff each night to count the number killed during the day. They counted the dead otter and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant. But I never went to the cove and whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It was more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck.

This I told my father one morning.

‘There are scarcely a dozen left in the beds around Coral Cove,’ I said. ‘Before the Aleuts came there were many.’

‘Many still live in other places around the island,’ he replied, laughing at my foolishness. ‘When the hunters leave they will come back.’

‘There will be none left,’ I said. ‘The hunters will kill them all. This morning they hunt on the south. Next week they move to another place.’

‘The ship is filled with pelts. In another week the Aleuts will be ready to go.’

I was sure that my father thought they would leave soon, for two days before he had sent some of our young men to the beach to build a canoe from a log which had drifted in from the sea.

There are no trees on the island except the small ones stunted by the wind. When a log came ashore, as happened once in a long time, it was always carried to the village and worked on where a chance wave could not wash it away. That the men were sent to hollow out the log in the cove, and to sleep beside it during the night, meant that they were there to watch the Aleuts, to give the alarm should Captain Orlov try to sail off without paying us for the otter skins.

Everyone was afraid he might, so besides the men in the cove who watched the Aleut ship, others kept watch on the camp.

Every hour someone brought news. Ulape said that the Aleut woman spent a whole afternoon cleaning her skin aprons, which she had not done before while she had been there. Early one morning, Ramo said he had just seen Captain Orlov carefully trimming his beard so that it looked the way it did when he first came. The Aleuts who sharpened the long spears stopped this work and gave all their time to skinning the otter which were brought in at dusk.

We in the village of Ghalas-at knew that Captain Orlov and his hunters were getting ready to leave the island. Would he pay us for the otter he had slain or would he try to sneak away in the night? Would our men have to fight for our rightful share?

These questions everyone asked while the Aleuts went about their preparations — everyone except my father, who said nothing, but each night worked on the new spear he was making.