Extraction and Ecological Collapse

Rutherford presents industrial whaling as a force that strips the world of life until there is almost nothing left to take, and he imagines the Arctic as a place where this depletion finally turns back on the whalers themselves. From the opening letter about the Dromo’s loss, the novel places readers in an industry already in decline, where the smartest families have diversified and the Ashleys cling to the fantasy that they can keep “ridding the waves of great fish” as if nothing has changed (10). The Esther sails not into an untouched frontier but into grounds that Leander and other captains have already emptied, so that each whale the crew kills becomes part of a dwindling population rather than an endless stock. Rutherford shows how this depletion works on multiple levels: the whales vanish from traditional grounds, the walrus and seal lines...