Photo by 5L Photography
Cynthia Reeves is the author of the new novel The Last Whaler. Her other books include Falling Through the New World. She lives in Camden, Maine.
Q: What inspired you to write The Last Whaler, and how did you create your characters Tor and Astrid?
A: I was inspired to write The Last Whaler when I came upon a heart-wrenching sight during my 2017 Arctic Circle Summer Solstice Expedition artists’ residency aboard the barquentine Antigua.
Stretching before me were piles and piles of beluga bones, the remains of 500-700 whales harvested on the southern shore of Van Keulenfjorden in the Svalbard archipelago in the 1930s.
Cultural remains such as these are preserved as a matter of law on Svalbard; however, I could find little of the story behind these bones other than a short passage in the Cruise Handbook for Svalbard.
The passage identified Ingvald Svendsen from Tromsø as the beluga whaler who caught belugas here in the interwar years. In the absence of a story, what else can a fiction writer do but fill the void?
I’m quite sure my Tor Handeland is nothing like Ingvald, nor is Tor’s botanist-wife, Astrid, based on any real-life whaler’s wife. Tor and Astrid are in a way foils for each other, allowing me to illuminate the subject matter I found most compelling since that first trip to Svalbard.
The “bone cemetery” represents the ways in which we damage sublime landscapes, and the whale harvest the ways in which we threaten species. Part of the tension that arises between Tor and Astrid derives from their opposing views over these environmental concerns.
Yet the two also form the heart of the story: their isolation from each other caused by their coping in silence over the death of their son Birk, and their survival against all odds over the long polar winter.
Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: A confession: I (almost) love research more than the writing. In this case, I came across the beluga bones and wondered how they got there. One thing led to another, and soon I had a list of topics I knew nothing about: beluga whaling, Arctic flora, the history of Svalbard, 20th century Norwegian history, Norway’s culture and customs, the people of this historical period, coal mining, the many kinds of ice, the myths and stories of this land, and communications and navigation of the era.
To make Tor and Astrid sound authentic, I pored through books on whaling and Arctic flora not only for the factual background but also to help me inhabit two very different voices.
The research influenced many of the novel’s scenes—such as how belugas were hunted on Van Keulenfjorden and the ways in which flora are procured and preserved for scientific study.
Beyond books, I was determined to feel what it was like to live on Svalbard during its unique seasons. The summer shipboard residency—and particularly the changeability of the weather and the vibrancy of the summer flora—informed the early pages of the novel.
Moreover, two month-long residencies in the fall of 2019—as Svalbard entered the dark season—and mid-winter 2020—as the sun gradually returned—gave me a very real sense of what it felt like to live through the bitter cold and 24-hour night.
I made it a point to venture outside of Longyearbyen on a full-moon night to experience the wonder of moonlight against the snow-covered landscape in the dead of winter. Of course, I had to be accompanied by an armed guide on that trek as there is always the danger of coming upon polar bears.
What most surprised me in my research was the number of women who forged careers and lives on Svalbard. In particular, I was fascinated by Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen, a trained botanist and environmental pioneer who, in 1907, accompanied a ship full of men to the archipelago to study Arctic flora, was dropped off alone with her paraphernalia, provisions, and a tent, and eventually wrote the first guide called Svalbards flora (1927).
In a very real sense, the novel is dedicated to these women and embodied not only in their appearance in The Last Whaler but also in the fictional character of Astrid Handeland.
Q: The writer Tanya Whiton said of the book, “The Last Whaler reimagines the tropes of Victorian and Romantic novels through a uniquely feminist environmentalist lens, rendering a classic story as timely, contemporary fiction...” What do you think of that description?
A: I believe that the reader completes the work, so Whiton’s vision of the novel is truly her own. I wasn’t consciously applying “Victorian and Romantic tropes” as I wrote, yet I can appreciate her perspective.
An example is the dual narrative. However, instead of the classic application of this trope—that is, one narrative serving as a framing device for the embedded narrative—Tor’s and Astrid’s points of view are almost equally weighted.
The trope of the “marriage plot” is central here too. Again it’s not the traditional “star-crossed lovers who finally find themselves together in the end.” Rather, the Handelands’ and Nøises’ marriages illuminate the unusual ways in which couples come together, persevere despite hardships, and never stop loving each other. And yes, there’s a bit of steamy sex too.
Regarding the “feminist, environmentalist lens,” I was conscious of depicting female characters who were ahead of their time and describing landscapes both sublime and damaged.
Astrid is the rare (for her time) college-educated woman who decides to leave her 10-year-old daughter behind to accompany her husband to Svalbard. And Tor is also unusual in that he supports his wife’s determination to come with him—albeit after a strenuous argument.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: At its core, The Last Whaler is a story of a marriage under existential stress. The novel strips this relationship to its essence. What keeps a couple together? What drives a couple apart? What is love?
The novel is also a story of a landscape that once was and still is. Few people venture to Svalbard—which might not be a bad thing, since human encroachment on a pristine landscape tends to damage it.
Writing and art that portrays this unique environment invites readers into this world, giving them a sense of the Arctic and what could be lost if it’s not preserved.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a story about obsession. What happens when an intense, budding relationship is interrupted by tragedy and the one left behind continues to pine for the missing in a way that borders on pathological? It, too, is partly set on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago.
By the time this interview is published, I will have (hopefully) circumnavigated Svalbard aboard the icebreaker MV Ortelius and passed by the island Kvitøya, which plays a major role in the unfolding story.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Please visit my website to learn more and also to see my book tour, which is going across several states:
Cynthia Reeves - The Last Whaler (cynthiareeveswriter.com)
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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