Lukannon

For those of us who think of Mowgli, Bagheera, Balo, and Shere Khan from the Disney movie the Jungle Book, or vaguely remember Akela and the "Law of the Pack" from our Cub Scout days, it comes as a surprise that there's a book about the Fur Seals of the Pribilofs in Rudyard Kipling's 1894 classic.

It is called the "White Seal".  Kotick, a rare white-furred fur seal, sees seals being killed by islanders in the Bering Sea.  He decides to find a safe home for his people, and after several years of searching as he comes of age, eventually finds a suitable place.  He returns home and persuades the other seals to follow him.

In each of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories, he added a poem as an epilogue.  This is what he appended to the great deep-sea song that all the St. Paul seals sing when they are heading back to their beaches in the summer.  It is indeed a “sort of very sad seal National Anthem.”

Lukannon 

    I met my mates in the morning (and, oh, but I am old!)

    Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled. 

    I heard them lift the chorus that drowned the breakers' song - 

    The Beaches of Lukannon - two million voices strong.

    The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,

    The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes,

    The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to flame -

    The Beaches of Lukannon - before the sealers came!

    I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them more!);

    They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.

    And o'er the foam-flecked offing as far as voice could reach

    We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up the beach.

    The Beaches of Lukannon--the winter wheat so tall -

    The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all!

    The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth and worn!

    The Beaches of Lukannon - the home where we were born!

    I met my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered band.

    Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land;

    Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and tame,

    And still we sing Lukannon - before the sealers came.

    Wheel down, wheel down to southward - oh, Gooverooska, go!

    And tell the Deep-Sea Viceroys the story of our woe;

    Ere, empty as the shark's egg the tempest flings ashore;

    The Beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no more!

Rudyard Kipling in “The White Seal”

The Jungle Book, 1894