"A Symphony of Whales"
by Steve Schuch

Student Edition
Unit 3, pp. 358–373

Fiction sometimes tells a story based on events that really did happen. Look for parts of this Snapshot that you think are true.

Blizzards often raged during the long, cold winters of the far northern village. The people there hunted seals and whales. Animals of the sea provided meat for food, skins for clothing, furs for warmth, and oil for fuel to light the lamps.
Glashka was a young villager with a special gift. She heard the ancient songs of the whale, or Narna. She heard them when she dreamed and when she was awake. Elders of her village told her how great a gift she had.
One winter, storms came early. Glashka and her family still had to get winter supplies. The night before they went, Glashka had a dream that the sled dogs left the trail and led her to water surrounded by ice. She heard the singing of Narna, louder than it had ever been before.
The next day she and her family traveled by dogsled to the next village. On the return trip, the dogs left the trail. They yelped, and their ears twitched. They pulled the sled toward a sound of moans and whistles that became louder and louder. Finally they stopped at a large bay of open water surrounded by ice.
There Glashka and her parents saw and heard a thousand or more beluga whales. The whales were trapped in the bay, which was quickly freezing over. To breathe, whales must come to the surface of the water. If the bay froze over completely, the whales would not be able to get to the surface. They would suffocate. They also needed to get back to the open sea to find food. The small white whales cried and moaned as they swam about slowly.
Glashka wanted to help them, but her father feared there was nothing that could be done. Then her mother remembered seeing a Russian ice-breaking ship. Maybe the ship could come and cut a channel through the ice. Then the whales could get back out to sea. Glashka and her parents hurried back to the village. They told everyone what they had seen and made a call on the emergency radio. Could anyone hear them?
The Russians radioed that they would come, but it might take them weeks. In the meantime, the villagers anxiously chipped away at the ice. They would do their best to keep the bay from freezing over completely. The whales took turns getting air in the open area, which was getting smaller. Glashka sang to them while she helped chip away the ice. Finally, the icebreaker arrived. It made a deep cut through the ice of the bay and then turned back out to sea. The captain hoped the whales would follow the ship. But they did not. Thinking that they were afraid of the engine noise, he played a recording of whale songs over a loudspeaker. It was Narna's song, but the belugas would not follow.
That night Glashka heard the songs of Narna in her dreams. But this time she heard another melody too. She told the village elders of her dream. They radioed to the captain and suggested that he play other music, not whale songs. The captain tried Russian folk music and rock and roll, but still the whales would not follow.
Then he played a recording of classical music by a symphony orchestra. The whales grew quiet. They listened to the violins and violas, the cellos and string basses. A few whales started to sing back. More joined them. And then they began to swim toward the ship. Carefully the captain started the engines again and headed slowly out to sea. As the ship moved, the whales followed. The captain radioed that the whales were safe. And Glashka told her grandmother that she didn't hear just the songs of Narna now. Instead, she heard a symphony of whales, heading back to the safety of the sea.

Text from A Symphony of Whales, copyright © 1999 by Steve Schuch, reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc. and Steve Schuch.

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