Posted by Doreen Cunningham on March 4th, 2022

In the waters off north-western Mexico, this March, and every March, grey whale mothers and calves are beginning an epic migration, from Baja California to the Arctic Ocean feeding grounds. It’s a twelve-thousand-mile round trip - that’s like swimming around the moon twice.

I was living in a homeless hostel for single mothers when I first read about the grey whales’ marathon. Worn down by trying to do freelance work at night while my toddler Max slept, often relying on food banks, I’d had enough. Inspired by the whales’ endurance and freedom, I decided we would follow them. After scraping together the money to get to the US, we travelled by bus train and ferry up the west coast, sleeping on sofas and in youth hostels.

I watched Max pat a baby grey whale in the Mexican nursery lagoons. They came to him when he sang. Giant grey hulks splashed and played around us, bumping the boat with their noses.

Every step of the journey north, we were helped by strangers.

While travelling, the whale mothers breastfeed, navigating undersea canyons where predatory orcas lie in wait for their calves. They also negotiate a warming, changing ocean. Grey whales are used to managing the unknown. They survived previous climate change during the ice ages when the sea level dropped, eliminating much of their feeding grounds, probably because they were flexible in what they ate.

Before my son was born I’d worked in climate science and then for a decade as a journalist, struggling to get climate change on the radio amongst all the other stories battling for attention.

The book carries the story of what has happened with climate in my lifetime: in the oceans, in the Arctic, in the media, and in the oil company boardrooms where climate change denial was born.

As a mother it’s sometimes hard not to be overwhelmed by worry about the future. But when I remember my son playing with the whales, I’m inspired again by their resilience. And I remember what those who helped us on our journey taught me, that anything is possible when we work together.