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<\/a>Mike DeRoos touches up a spot on the blue whale skeleton\u2019s flipper. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n
When DeRoos and a team resurrected the whale in 2008 from a beach on eastern Canada\u2019s Prince Edward Island, where it had been preserved in its red clay grave for 20 years, and stripped away the putrid flesh, they discovered that the skull of the behemoth female had been crushed\u2014likely during a fatal blow from a ship. It wasn\u2019t the only injustice. They also discovered that someone had sawed off a 3.7-meter-long flipper. A local returned the bones of the missing limb, minus a lot of the smaller pieces that must have been absconded by critters or swallowed by the forest where it lay. And then, while DeRoos and his helpers tried to expunge some of the bones of oil in a heated enzyme bath at a warehouse in Victoria, on the West Coast, they began to disintegrate like soggy cardboard. The skull had to be re-created, as did the massive rib bones, which were too heavy to hang. Almost every surviving original bone also needed repair. DeRoos, Main, and artist Joanne Thomson of Victoria spent months painting the patches and replica pieces to blend in.<\/p>\n
DeRoos, slim and soft-spoken with the calm demeanor of an urban deer, stands beside the whale and points out the repairs. \u201cShe\u2019s holding up really well,\u201d he concludes. Up here, at ground level, surrounded by windows, the blue whale gleams.<\/p>\n
Thomson breezes in, holding a brown bag of mystery vertebrae from Mexico for Stinson to identify (likely porpoise or dolphin). \u201cOh, she looks so pretty,\u201d she exhales, face upturned.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Artist Joanne Thomson of Victoria blends a layer of archival paint on the skeleton\u2019s jawbone. Photo by Shanna Baker<\/p><\/div>\n
The whale hangs by steel cables, suspended above a basement-level atrium. Visitors can first admire it at eye level as they enter the museum and then descend a switchback ramp to stand below and take in the skeleton\u2019s full breadth. It invokes the type of hushed reverence that some might reserve for gazing up at the Michelangelos in the Sistine Chapel. DeRoos designed hidden internal armature for the bones and positioned Big Blue in a dynamic lunging position with her jaw wide open, tail undulating, and front flippers streaming back. \u201cA skeleton is more aesthetically pleasing if it\u2019s scientifically exact,\u201d he says, \u201cIf I miss some of the details and they, for instance, have ribs misaligned or a limb doing something it shouldn\u2019t be doing, the skeleton doesn\u2019t look right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like all masterpieces, there\u2019s nuance in the details\u2014a story in the bones. Often a skeleton will have broken toes or ribs, DeRoos explains, and it\u2019s clear the animal limped along with the injury for a long time. \u201cI find that really interesting, seeing the whole story about how it lived its life, whether it was in pain.\u201d Sometime during Big Blue\u2019s life, she broke a rib or had a localized infection\u2014the bone swells there into a burl. As I scrutinize the whale, I also realize that it has an extra rib on the right side.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we were somewhat confused by that,\u201d says DeRoos. They searched the excavation site at length, but could find no evidence of another rib. Turns out, it\u2019s not uncommon for whales to have an unpaired rib.<\/p>\n