ABSTRACT
For many years the author has amassed a collection of whale materials, which includes ear bones, teeth, vertebrae, and even a rib. The author's walls accommodate paintings, etchings, and engravings of whales; indeed, my home office might be considered a sort of shrine to a love of whales. The rib was legally purchased from a collector and seller of anatomical and natural oddities. Along with these the author had collected Inuit soapstone carvings of whales and a Narwhal vertebrae inscribed with the words Arctic Bay'. Vanderlin Island is a place of great importance for the Yanyuwa people with whom John works. The author carved dugong bone has been shaped into two small sperm whales. Moby Dick is my desert-island book. The lens of Melville the author could imagine the bustling wharves of nineteenth-century New Bedford. While sailing in the Pacific Ocean Melville tells the author of the many hours the whalers spent in the evenings repairing sails.
