The Whale in the Woods
A long-standing mystery finally put to rest
FIRST, THERE WAS THE OATH. Jack made us swear not to tell anyone about what he was about to show us. Nobody can find out, he said, looking too serious for his seven years.
Being eight, I was the oldest and went first, crossing my heart and hoping to die. My sister Sally, who was the same age as Jack, mimicked my heart crossing in grim silence—as if dying were a real possibility. Maybe it was, knowing our wild existence.
Satisfied with the sincerity of our pledges, Jack led us into a misty world of sword ferns and moss, his little brother Danny following close behind.
The Ulmer boys were our friends mostly because our parents were friends, but also because they were the only other kids on the mountain close to our age. Our family lived on Livingston Mountain, just north of Camas, Washington, and Jack and Danny’s folks were renting an old farmhouse a country mile from us on Lessard Road (a name that would become a lesson in history for me).
The area had been settled by European immigrants between the mid to late 1800s, and left in their wake were these decaying homesteads with loose-jointed barns and weather-worn farmhouses. Such was the place Jack and Danny lived. The property was nestled deep in the woods, down a rough cut road that opened onto a clearing we all called the hollow. There, the land’s first settler had built their house and barn in a small meadow next to a year-round creek, leaving the surrounding countryside covered in a dense, dark forest of Douglas fir and western hemlock.
Almost a hundred years later, the two-story farmhouse—with its paint worn through and exposed wood bleached gray—had gravity-fed plumbing, no electricity, and an outhouse a few paces from the back door. Our friends relied on oil lamps for lighting and a woodstove for heating, and the boy’s mom, Patty, often came to our house to do laundry. Their dad, Big Jack, was a rascal of a man and not above poaching to keep venison on the table. No one I knew lived quite like they did, and spending the night—especially in the cold and rainy depths of winter—held a certain sense of adventure.
It was Danny’s birthday—his fifth by my math—and Patty had made angel food cake THAT WE ATE FOR BREAKFAST! An unimaginable breach of etiquette at our house. Yet there we were at the Ulmer’s breakfast table, dressed in our PJs and eating cake frosted with pink icing. Before we could finish licking ice cream off our plates—another unimaginable breach—the birthday boy tore open his one and only present, a small, promotional teddy bear that had come free inside a box of powdered laundry detergent (we had the same bear and detergent at our house). Even at my tender age, I knew what lean times looked like. But Patty had a knack for making everything fun.
Raining or not, the four of us kids would have normally spent the rest of the day exploring the hollow, catching slugs and salamanders, playing trampoline on an old bed spring thrown out back, or ramming against trees with all our might until the roots pulled loose from the damp, mulchy soil. But this day was different. As soon as we got outside and away from adult ears, Jack had us making those oaths and crossing our hearts.
What is it, I said, not understanding what I was seeing. The clouds and tree canopy were blocking most of the light, and the long, narrow box that was laying in the forest’s wet underbrush looked like a giant coffin. As it turned out, that’s exactly what it was. Inside the rough-hewn plank box was an orca whale, its black and white skin perfectly preserved as if it had died the day before.
There were so many questions, but Jack had few answers. All he knew was that the whale was a secret and that if anybody found out, his dad would get into all kinds of trouble. Being a kid, that was all I needed to hear. As mentioned, Big Jack was a rascal—fun loving and freewheeling—and I must have assumed he’d been up to his usual hijinks.
I don’t remember what we did the rest of the day. I mean, it wasn’t like we could play with the dead creature or anything like that. Really, I don’t think we had much to do with it after that except stop by and marvel each time we came to the hollow.
A few years later I saw Jack at school, and he was wearing a leather string around his neck with a whale’s tooth attached. By then, his dad had died under tragic circumstances, and his mom was newly remarried. Soon after, they moved to Oregon, and that was the last I saw of him and Danny.
Fast forward to 2026. My siblings have this long rolling text chain that we use to keep in touch, and a few months ago my brother Joe sent a link to an article about the whale. Holy cow. I’d had no idea there was such a history—and mystery—surrounding this poor creature.
According to two separate articles (see links below), the young female orca had wandered up the Columbia River in 1931, got stranded in the Camas Slough, and was harpooned by Edward Lessard and his son Joseph after no one could figure out how to rescue her. Her remains fell into the hands of two other men who capitalized on her misfortune by charging money to see ‘Ethelbert the Killer Whale’. Authorities stepped in and made the macabre decision to preserve her body in a steel tank filled with formaldehyde. Meanwhile, there was a public outcry and the Lessard father and son were charged with violating fishing laws. Ultimately, they were found not guilty and were granted custody of the whale’s remains. They followed through with their own plans to display her body, but when that revenue source ran dry, rumor had it they hid her away on the land they owned on Livingston Mountain.
Thirty-seven years later, in 1968, four little kids stood around her body in a forest off Lessard Road on Livingston Mountain, and a year after that she was ‘re-discovered’ by a Clark County tax assessor. One article went on to say that a few years later, some timber inspectors dug a hole and buried her body—in my opinion the only humane aspect of this entire ordeal.
There is still a mystery on where, exactly, they buried the whale’s remains. Also, Sally and I both agree the box was made from hardy wood planks, not steel. Perhaps it was lined with steel and we hadn’t noticed? Or we were remembering incorrectly? Or it was switched from steel to wood at some point?
Wanting to solve this final mystery, we took a drive down Lessard Road a few weeks ago, but there were no familiar landmarks to guide us to the hollow. Google Earth offered an approximation, but the landscape had changed, forests had been logged, and the old homestead was no more. I kind of like this.
Even still, if Sally and I would have gotten out of the car and followed the creek, I know we would have found her.
Rest in Peace, Dear Orca.
Author’s note: Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of our childhood friends and their families. However, everything else in this whale’s tale is true.
Cascade PBS article from 2021, click here.
Camas Post-Record article from 2026, click here.
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