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Created by Nicholas Thorburn of The Islands

Liner Notes:

When I first encountered Tsuxiit (Su-kee), I was on a skiff that my father was operating the West Coast of Vancouver Island in an area called Nootka Sound. We were in a small bay called Friendly Cove (Yuquot) where my father was stationed as a Fishery Officer with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The story of Tsuxiit, also known by scientists as L98 and the general public as Luna, is a very, very incredible one and, alas, very heartbreaking, and it’s a story I thank my father for sharing with me. It began with a pod of Southern Resident whales (Orcas) swimming out in the Pacific Ocean. (If we had to pick sides, these would be the good guys - the bad guys, the transients, are very aggressive, eating seals and even other Orcas, killer whales.) Everything was going according to plan for the pod, when it is believed Tsuxiit and his Uncle swam North to find food. During the hunt for fish, the Uncle, an older Orca, died or was attacked, and the young (one year old) was lost. Without the rest of the pod, who had by now traveled to great a distance to reconnect, Tsuxiit sought refuge in a small bay near Tahsis, called Mooyah Bay. Tahsis is a small village near Gold River where my father had been working.

The Indian tribe, Mowachaht/Muchalaht, (Maw-a-shat/Moo-sha-lat) noticed that, with great coincidence, L98 had shown up in days of the passing of their chief, Ambrose Maquinna, and believed that his spirit embodied the whale. Tsuxiit is the name that they gave him, and soon everybody was coming to Gold River to catch a glimpse of him. He was a very colourful character, not at all shy or inhibited. No mater how many miles away he was, if you went out on the water, he would hear you and was sure to swim over, flapping his tail and rubbing his nose up against your boat. At first it was completely harmless, but then people started offering him junk food and beer, Tsuxiit never accepted anything offered. People began taking pictures dangling their babies over his open mouth (no joke). Not only that, but Tsuxiit started to get increasingly lonely, and began looking for attention wherever he could find it. He would push up on and gnaw on the rudders of the seaplanes in the area. This caused some major damage with his increasingly massive body size. My father would have to spend almost all his working days out on the water, to ensure that people would not “fraternize” with Tsuxiit, as to much human contact would prevent him from rejoining his pod (family) and behaving like a normal wild animal. Measures were being taken by conservationists and F & O Canada to find the pod and reconnect him with them, but the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people were deeply opposed. If they were to be believed, their chief, Tsuxiit should remain there where he was, as it was his choosing.

This created quite a controversy amongst the two factions, and after one such attempt to move Tsuxiit back into his natural habitat at a cost of thousands of dollars, my father and the conservationists were stone-walled by the tribe, who had set up a blockade with their boats. So nothing could be done safely as grew bigger, more estranged from his species, increasingly lonely and much more restless than before. Furthermore some local sport and commercial fishermen and loggers were threatening to shoot Tsuxiit if he came near their motors and rudders again. Two long years went by and the novelty of a lone killer whale in ” Friendly Cove” had worn off. He was seen a nuisance by some, just another piece of fabric of the raw West Coast landscape by the rest. When my Dad took me out, it was fairly early on, and though I wasn’t really supposed to touch him (and didn’t out of respect for his wild animal instincts) he came right up to our little boat and presented himself as the most pure and love-able being this earth could conjure up.

We drove the boat really fast (10 knots) and he took the lead, swimming just enough in front of us, swimming with us, almost under us, so we could watch him skate through the water. In what was perhaps a dangerous move, but for the sake of capturing a great image, I climbed right over the edge of the boat, dangling my upper-half almost into the water. With my camera I caught what I think is a remarkably unique vantage point of a remarkably unique whale.

It was in early May of 2006, while I was in New York, on tour with “Islands”, that I got a phone call from my father that Tsuxiit had been killed, accidentally by the propeller of a tug boat. You see on that day, he approached the tug much like he would on any day, with the intention of swimming in it’s wake, and rubbing up against the boat. He was desperately seeking some kind of companionship no matter how alien. Tragically, he was swimming to close to the propellers and was sucked into it’s reverse action pull, and didn’t make it out. That night, fighting back tears, I paid tribute to Tsuxiit during our performance of the song, written a year prior. We screened the video I’d made to accompany the song.

Biography:

Coming soon!

One Response to “Tsuxiit”

• kams kams
  February 5th, 2009

  that whale was so cute!

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