Davie

Davie is a coordinating presence at the whale-watching station in Tofino: he manages its skippers, communicates during the unfolding attacks in Clayoquot Sound, and must decide whether further rescue attempts are worth the risk. His role brings the crisis down to the level of a crowded office and a jammed radio, where the need to act collides with the possibility of losing still more lives.

Work at the station

Davie works alongside Tom Shoemaker as calls and radio traffic overwhelm the station. When Jack Greywolf’s battered boat makes it back to Tofino, the news of the attack has already spread through town. The station’s skippers have gathered, radio frequencies are jammed, and reports from people who went out to help describe fresh attacks. As other vessels and people are reported in trouble, the crisis is no longer confined to one boat or one crew.

The communication breakdown is immediate and practical. Davie works the shortwave radio, turning its dials to pick up a signal from a trawler near Ucluelet. The trawler had answered a distress call from a Zodiac inflatable boat, but it too was attacked and was turning back. Then the signal disappears. Davie has no clear account of what happened and no dependable way to get one; the loss of contact leaves the people in the office to confront danger they can hear about but cannot yet assess.

Decisions during the rescue crisis

Shoemaker wants to go out again, but Davie stops the argument and warns against risking more lives. He proposes waiting for the seapilots to report before deciding what to do. This is not indifference to those still at sea: Davie remains at the radio, trying to contact the pilots. His caution reflects the changed circumstances, in which would-be rescuers have themselves become targets.

When the pilots’ report comes in, the Lady Wexham has capsized and is taking on water. Davie quietly turns to Leon Anawak to weigh Shoemaker’s proposal: could they help, or would another departure amount to suicide? His question makes the decision a shared one, but it also shows Davie testing the urge to act against what the available information says about the danger. The choice is not between caring and not caring; it is between an attempted rescue and the possibility of creating further casualties.

Aftermath and public blame

On the return to the jetty, the sight of the unscathed Devilfish is Davie’s only comfort. The crowd is packed with people, the names of the missing are read aloud, and some listeners collapse in shock. Nearly all the Zodiac’s passengers are suffering from hypothermia. Friends and family take most of them to a clinic, while those more seriously injured face an uncertain wait for a helicopter to Victoria. Even after the boats return, the radio continues to carry reports of new horrors.

Davie also has to endure the public response. He and the skippers face hostile questioning, accusations, and defamation; threats of physical violence are made if the passengers do not return. The surviving tourists blame the station’s crews for irresponsibility and for taking battered boats to sea. The idea that whales could attack without provocation is rejected: they are regarded as placid, and the possibility of their aggression is difficult for the accusers to accept. The result is a bitter reversal. People who went to sea to help are treated as though they were responsible for the deaths, while no one is willing to hear their account of the danger.

The rescue does bring most of the Lady Wexham’s crew and passengers home safely. Many remember to thank Shoemaker and Anawak, but Jack Greywolf becomes the public hero. He moves among the survivors, listening, organising, and offering rides to the clinic. Davie sees how hard Greywolf is trying to act as a Samaritan, but the gesture does not erase the broader injustice of the scene: compassion is visible, while the question of who is truly to blame remains unanswered.

Greywolf, judgment, and whale-watching

Davie’s connection with Greywolf predates the crisis. After Greywolf left prison, where he had read about conservation and whales, he approached Davie about working as an extra skipper. Davie, who had met him on a visit to Ucluelet, agreed to take him on and cautioned him to stay out of trouble. The account presents Davie as willing to offer a practical second chance, not as unaware of Greywolf’s difficult history.

That patience is tested when Greywolf punches a passenger. Davie wants to fire him, but Anawak asks that he be given another opportunity. Three weeks later Greywolf repeats the assault, and Davie dismisses him. The progression matters: Davie does not overlook the first incident, but he accepts Anawak’s appeal; after the behavior recurs, he draws a firm line. His judgment combines openness to another chance with responsibility for the people working at and visiting the station.

Later, Anawak defends the whale-watching operation to Greywolf, who has singled out Davie’s station. Anawak’s case is that bringing people to see living whales has helped make whales and dolphins more valued than dead ones; he cites ten million whale-watching visitors a year and argues that research conducted through the work helps protect whales in their natural habitat. This defense gives Davie’s workplace a significance beyond its immediate rescue role: it is also part of a conservation practice that depends on public attention and research. The crisis exposes the vulnerability of that work, as the same visitors and skippers who gather around whales can be drawn into lethal danger, and the survivors’ anger can obscure the purpose for which the station exists.