The Last Whale

The Last Whale by Fremantle Press is a novel by Australian author and journalist Chris Pash.

In the late 1970s in Albany, Western Australia, Chris Pash was an eager young reporter working on the Albany Advertiser. The town was full of tension while it bore witness to the final days of Australia’s whaling industry.

Pash was a city boy, fresh, eager, and keen to make his mark in journalism. He took notes. He kept files. He saw and heard things he could not write.

Thirty years after the last whale was captured and slaughtered in Albany, Pash tells the story he could not tell then, of the characters and events that brought whaling to an end. He knew them all and he kept the notes because something told him that one day, when the pain was just a memory, the story would be written.

The Last Whale is a fair and balanced account portraying the raw adventure of going to sea, the perils of being a whaler and the ‘crazy, but somehow magical’ commitment that lead activists to throw themselves into the paths of explosive harpoons.

Accompanied by a fine photographic record of the time, this is the action-packed history of a town reliant on whaling dollars pitted against a determined band of protesters.

Chris Pash is a journalist who works in the news and information industry. The Last Whale was published by Fremantle Press in October 2008.