Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey (Adventure Press) - Softcover

The gray whale is one of the most ancient and mysterious of all the great whales. Its 10,000-mile West Coast migration tells a story of many worlds, human and cetacean - a living interspecies history. For 50 million years, these gray elders of all the whales have evolved alongside our shores and we are linked to these mammal kin by more than a shared history. Anatomically, there is a human equivalent for every bone in the gray whale's body - from fragile vestigial limbs invisible in the gray's mighty tale flukes to the delicate finger and hand skeletons inside each pectoral fin. Like hidden, mirror images, humans and gray whales reflect a larger story than science alone can tell. While Sightings looks at the past and the present events surrounding the gray whale, including recent hunting agreements, the authors also keep an eye to the future. Following the gray whale's monumental journey along the West Coast from Baja to Bering Sea, they tell the story not only of the whale but also of the people, both tribal, scientific researchers, everyday natural explorers and fishermen, and those small coastal communities whose lives are graced with and focused on the gray whale migration. Hogan's and Peterson's voices offer an insight into the current conflicts between Native peoples, businessmen, the tour industry, and environmentalists. The book includes the narrative retelling of dialogues with tribal leaders, hunters, scientists and communities, and the history of traditional whaling villages and what residents have observed in their many years of watching the gray whale. It will also describe the environment and lands along the migration - its sand, water, black rocks, the vegetation of the sea and other marine life - a story placed within the context of the whale's environment.

Linda Hogan is an American writer, academic, and environmentalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for her novel Mean Spirit. The Chickasaw Nation's writer in residence, she has also been honored with an American Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Hogan lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. To learn more, visit lindahoganwriter.com. Brenda Peterson is the bestselling author of more than 15 books, including Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey, Your Life Is a Book: How to Craft & Publish Your Memoir, and Wolf Nation: The Life, Death, and Return of Wild American Wolves. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Huffington Post, among many other publications. To learn more, visit brendapetersonbooks.com.