Into Great Silence Quotes

“Transients, according to Hoyt, are mostly silent. When vocal, they are terse, their dialect consisting of fewer calls, most of them brief and quiet.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“learned that resident orcas are “chatty”: each pod (a collection of related maternal groups traveling together a majority of the time) identifies itself and stays in contact via a unique dialect of calls. These dialects reflect cultural traditions.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“Eric Hoyt called orcas “sonic creatures.” Their universe is acoustic, while that of humans (unless blind), is primarily visual. Hoyt quoted the controversial researcher of captive dolphins, John Lilly. Lilly pondered the intelligence of whales and dolphins, whose brain morphology resembles that of humans. Lacking hands to construct or write with, whales, Lilly theorized, “may have taken the path of legends and verbal traditions.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“The Haida name for orca, keet, means “supernatural being.” Some people call them killer, some orca, but in essence both names lead to the same place.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“There, two ecotypes of orca roam the same waters but never interact: residents—fish eaters, and transients—mammal eaters. (Later research would identify a third ecotype, offshores—shark eaters.)”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“I came to believe that the place and the whales played a part in rescuing me. Not in some mystical sense, but simply by existing, with or without me. They saved me, though I can’t save them.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“One blustery winter day, out for a skiff ride, I spotted a black fin amid gray waves. A few minutes later, a whoosh near the skiff startled me. I turned to see a wind-flattened blow, the fin rising, the arch of a flank emerging and sliding back under the water. Then she disappeared, as if the rough sea had swallowed her. I looked everywhere, but she was gone.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“Chugach transients, which are no more, no less killers than any other carnivore, is better reflected by “orca,” derived from the name of a Roman god of the underworld.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“Chugachmiut and the Eyak—”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“Alone I wandered between worlds, the objective world of species, natural history and names, and the subjective world of symbols and signs.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas

“Maybe this is the beginning of healing, the repeated lick of the tide, like an animal worrying a wound clean and raw.”
― Eva Saulitis, Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas