Doreen Cunningham is an Irish-British writer, who was born in Wales.

She is the author of Soundings: Journeys in the Company of Whales, which won the 2020 Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction; and was shortlisted for The Pat Kavanagh Award and the 2021 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award; and longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for writing on Global Conservation and the Society for the History of Natural History John Thackray Medal.

Doreen worked for 20 years at the BBC as an international news presenter, editor, producer and reporter after a period in scientific research and an engineering degree.

Talking About Books interviewed Doreen on her connection with whales, what they taught her about life, and on climate change and how it’s been reported over the years.

TAB: Soundings is partly about your connection with whales, especially with grey whales. What drew you to them?

DC: I was an island child, growing up mainly in Jersey, and I’ve been interested in whales since I was old enough to swim. I knew nothing about grey whales though, until I came across an article about them by accident as an adult. I was living in a hostel for homeless single mothers and working at night while my baby slept, completely broke. One night I was reading about whales on my laptop instead of working and learned that grey whale mothers and calves complete a marathon migration every year, from the birthing lagoons in Baja California, Mexico, to their Arctic feeding grounds. Some people say greys aren’t as charismatic or awe-inspiring as some of the other whales, such as the giant blues, widely watched humpbacks and beautifully marked orcas, but I was struck by their endurance. I also felt a sense of solidarity in the fact that it’s the mothers and calves doing it by themselves. I decided to get a bank loan, escape the human world, and follow the migration of mothers and calves with my son.

TAB: In Alaska, you were welcomed in by an Iñupiaq family with whom you stayed and experienced a deep sense of belonging, in spite of cultural differences. Could you tell us more about this?

DC: I first went to Alaska on a travel grant I won as a young radio journalist. I pitched to go to the Arctic and investigate attitudes to climate change among indigenous communities, and I had pitched it, one of the interview panel said, as though my life depended on it. I was working at the BBC World Service at that time and was very confused about the airtime being given to people denying climate change, with non-scientists being put into debates with scientists. We know now that there were financial links between some of the climate deniers and the oil industry, and that the aim was to spread doubt about the science. Another thing that happened regularly when I pitched climate in editorial meetings was that editors said we needed eyewitnesses: talking about graphs and predictions is difficult on the radio. So I decided to go to the Arctic and see for myself, to speak to eyewitnesses and to become an eyewitness myself.

I was taken in by a typically welcoming Iñupiaq family and joined the family hunting crew out on the sea ice. It’s extremely dangerous going hunting for whales on the ice because you are far from land, and the weather, ice and sea conditions can change at any time. Initially the crew was a bit suspicious of me but they looked after me in in life-threatening situations and taught me about the practical and spiritual side of the hunt. The Iñupiaq are fundamentally connected to the land and the ocean because the community is reliant on the hunt, and so on the health of the ocean, land and non-human beings that live there. The culture is built on the principle of sharing. The Arctic landscape is astonishingly beautiful, and I felt very privileged to be welcomed into the family and to have the opportunity to learn about Iñupiaq culture. I eventually fell in love with a member of the family, a subsistence hunter, and I really did not want to leave.

TAB: You write movingly about the problems you faced after you returned from your first trip to Alaska in the early 2000s: dealing with a controlling partner, and—as a single mother—trying to raise a child on a minimal income. And then you decided to take Max, your two-year-old, on a journey to see the whales, a brave and brilliant move. Could you tell us about this decision and what made you embark on this journey?

DC: I had reached rock-bottom in the hostel after the period of difficulty you describe. I was tired and desperate, struggling to make enough money to pay the hostel rent. I couldn’t see a way out of the situation. As a child growing up in Jersey, I was pretty wild. I spent a lot of time outdoors, often with animals. An abandoned feral pony became my best friend throughout childhood. So when I was in difficulty, it was what came naturally to me, to reach out to the more-than-human world, because it has always been a source of strength and loving relationships for me. Also, working as a journalist meant I was used to travelling and organizing trips, in fact I am happiest being on the move and meeting new people all the time. I didn’t want to be just showing my son the four walls of the hostel, or for him to experience a mother who felt trapped and miserable. I wanted him to experience wonder and joy, so I rang the bank, pretended I had a steady income so they would give me a loan, booked our tickets and went for it!

TAB: What did you learn about life from the whales?

DC: The main lesson was just learning to be with my son and to relax and enjoy playing with him, just like the whales playing with their calves in the birthing lagoons in Mexico where we first saw them. By following them I gave myself the space to meditate on the whales, on the difficulties they face during their migration, such as killer whale attacks and the effects of climate change in the ocean. I was also able to spend time with Max and love him without worrying about what other people thought of me as a homeless single parent. It was freeing and it was necessary to have this time to learn how to mother. My own mother had a traumatic childhood and she was very unpredictable and depressed as a result. I learned from the whales to show up for my son day after day, to take pleasure in his company and to appreciate every single sunrise we shared.

By going on the journey, I also put myself in a position of needing people and having to ask for help. I built a community of friends who helped us all the way up the West Coast. And of course, I made it back to my Iñupiaq family at the top of the world. Subconsciously I think following the whales was an elaborate excuse for me to get back there. I was so heartbroken to leave that I had struggled to go back, to even think about the place. But the whales took me there. I will always be so happy that I was able to take my son there, to introduce him to them.

Whenever I’m having a difficult time, I think of the whales, as they move breath by breath through the ocean. There is an Inuit song, Song from the Kitlinuharmiut, which also sums up what I learnt on the journeys I write about in Soundings.

“I think over again my small adventures,
… My fears,
Those small ones that seemed so big.
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.
And yet there is only one great thing,
The only thing.
To live to see … the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.”[1]

TAB: You wrote the book almost a decade after this second voyage with Max. Why did you wait so long to write it?

DC: I wasn’t planning to write a book but when I realized where we are with the unfolding of climate catastrophe around the world, I saw that if I viewed my life through a certain lens it was all about climate. I felt I had a responsibility to tell the story of false balance on climate, how it was born in oil company boardrooms when I was a child, how it played out in the world’s newsrooms during my time as a BBC journalist, and how it has manifested physical impacts in our world. We have been lied to, played by the oil industry and by capitalism and colonialism in general. I think it’s really important that people understand how this has happened, and I wanted to write about how I was taught that we need community and that we needed to look after each other, and to come together and take action on behalf of all the generations to come.

TAB: Whales are also being affected by climate change. How are they adapting?

DC: There is one whale that I always tell people about because she is so inspiring, a pioneering female grey named Earhart by researchers. Earhart is the founder of a group called the Sounders who’ve discovered a new food source, risking their lives in the act. The marine biologist John Calambokidis first spotted her in Puget Sound in 1990, and has seen other whales following her since. The Sounders stop off there during their migration to spend months sucking up mud soup and filtering out ghost shrimp in the shallow intertidal zone. The whales could easily become stranded on an outgoing tide if they misjudge their direction or timing. Close to shore, there’s also danger of entanglement, toxins, and being hit by boats. But the area functions as a sort of emergency food bank when other sources are scarce.

Grey whales are gurus of managing the unknown. They survived the ice ages by being flexible on diet, and seem to manage stress well,[2] perhaps due to genetic advantages, including in DNA maintenance and repair, and immune responses. The hope is that all this could help them survive in the warming, changing ocean. A mass grey whale die-off began in 2019. Hundreds have washed up dead, a large proportion of them poorly nourished. And, over the past two years, increasing numbers of underfed whales have joined the Sounders.

I often wonder how Earhart first found the ghost shrimp. Did she fortuitously lose her way one day? If we want to pioneer new paths through crisis, perhaps, like her, we have to take risks and be willing to get lost and let go of old ways of doing things.

TAB: What inspired you to start writing? Is it something you have always done?

DC: When I was a child I wanted to be a poet and a vet, and I’m always surprised when I remember I have written a book. I did it when I had baby twins and finished it off during lockdown on a very low income. Looking back, I really don’t know how I did it! It’s taken me a long time to be able to imagine even picking up a pen again but I have a few ideas that I might start exploring soon.

TAB: Your book opened up a new world for me. I learned so much about whales and about the Iñupiaq. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

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[1] A Kitlinuharmiut song, attributed to The Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-1924, translated by Knud Rasmussen.

[2] See “Gray whale transcriptome reveals longevity adaptations associated with DNA repair and ubiquitination”, Toren et al., Aging Cell. National Library of Medicine website (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32515539/).

Read my review of Doreen Cunningham’s Soundings for Women on the Road.