Honoring our čəxʷəluʔ and qal̕qaləx̌ič

The Orca Network celebrated our whales and orcas the past weekend with a Welcome the Whales Parade and other whale-themed activities.

Orca Network was formed 25 years ago, founded by Howard Garrett and his wife Susan Berta. At first the couple was dedicated to returning Tokitae, a young resident orca captured from her family from Penn Cove in the 1970s. She spent the rest of her life at the Miami Seaquarium, despite efforts by Orca Network and the Lummi Nation to return her to her pod. Tokitae, after finally being allowed to return home, died at the Seaquarium in 2023 before she could be transported to her native Salish Sea. Since then Orca Network’s email, text and social media sites note whale and orca sightings, its website features educational videos and links to marine resources. Orca Network operates The Langley Whale Center, a marine life education center/gift store in downtown Langley.

“What a joy it was to co-host the annual Welcome the Whales parade and waterside ceremonies with the Langley Chamber of Commerce,” said Howard. It’s wonderful to see so many folks show their appreciation for the fascinating gray whales who grace our shores.”

Artist Deborah Koff-Chapin was inspired to create a Welcome the Whales Parade following 2003’s Gaielle Remembering, a play written by long-time Langley resident Gail Fleming. In the play, a whale puppet appeared.

“Gaielle Remembering had a dream sequence with different animals. One was a gray whale. Gary Klay and his wife created an amazing large puppet of the whale,” said Deborah. “I said to her one day–We have to parade the whale downtown to welcome the whales! I thought to contact Susan Berta, co-founder of Orca Network. Her response was immediate–she had been wanting to hold a public event around the whales. So we pulled off the first joyous rag tag parade–maybe in 2004. I always participated in the waterside ceremony, bringing flowers out to the whales, etc. The last two years I stepped into coordinating the waterside ceremony, drawing in more community groups to engage the crowd.”

Artist Gretchen Lawlor, a long-time friend of Deborah Koff-Chapin’s, helped in hosting a before parade event, inviting locals to make whale-themed crowns. She engaged our swim group, the Salish SeaSirens, to walk in the parade and join Deborah and Ross Chapin for a dip in Saratoga Passage following the parade.

Did you know that orcas are not whales. They are members of the Delphinidae family or oceanic dolphins, and live in every ocean on Earth. In the Puget Sound, some are residents–such as the endangered L-Pod, comprised of about 30 or so members whose diet consists primarily of Chinook salmon. Other orcas are transients whose population thrives on a varied diet of marine life.

The visiting gray whales–Sounders–are a group of a dozen-and-growing Pacific gray whales who detour from their annual migration from Baja Mexico to the Bering Sea. They usually visit from March to May, veering into the North Puget Sound to feast on ghost shrimp.

What is unique about this group is that they discovered a new food source which required swimming from the Pacific Ocean into the Puget Sound, gauging the tides, and breaking off from their fellow companions en route to the Arctic. The first Sounders to forage in Saratoga Passage were ‘Shackleton’ and ‘Earhart,’ a male and female first documented in May 1990. One of the most famous of the Sounders is Patch, first identified in 1991, and known for a giant white patch on his right back.

Artist Melissa Koch is friends with and introduced Carly Mathews, chair woman of the Snohomish Tribe of Indians, who spoke at the Langley waterfront.

In the Snohomish (Lushootseed) language gray whales are known as čəxʷəluʔ–roughly pronounced as chuh-hwuh-loo-uh, and orcas are known as qal̕qaləx̌ič, which sounds like kal-kal-uh-HEE-chuh in English.