Eye of the Whale, Dick Russell, c. 2001

This was another remaindered hard cover book I picked up sometime in the past year or so. I honestly don't remember where I picked it up. In fact, I would not have remembered that it was a remaindered book until I noticed the "black" Nike swish on the bottom of the book.

Incredible book.

634 pages.

In large part it's a biography of Charles Melville Scammon, whaler-turned-conservationist, who lived and worked in the mid- to late-19th century. Much of the activity takes place during and after the Civil War, although Scammon himself was on the Pacific Ocean, up and down the coast from Baja California (Mexico) to Russian America (now Alaska).

I doubt if one will ever find a better history of the gray whale. In a way, it's a travelogue.

The additional trivia one learns about the authors Bret Hart and Mark Twain is so much fun. And the last section of the book, on the evolution of the gray whale is wonderful. I tried to find similar information on the internet and was amazed to see that so little of this information was there. This makes the book a unique source on the gray whale.