Some Days, Small Towns are the Best Towns

Not every stop on Clara's migration map draws a thousand people.

Yesterday in Juneau, a community of just over 2,000 tucked into Dodge County, Wisconsin, we set up and did a science program at the community center in partnership with the public library. Over the course of five hours, a little more than 200 people came through. Quiet by some standards. But 200 people in a town of 2,000 means roughly one in ten residents showed up. In a small town, that's not a quiet day. That's the whole neighborhood.

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  Juneau Community Center hosted Clara the whale

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  The prehistoric Zygorhiza sits in the foreground and the orca stands guard in the back

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  My niece and I joking around. It is always okay to be goofy.

I love these stops. There's something that happens in a smaller crowd that can get lost when the line stretches out the door. People linger. Kids come back for a second visit through Clara the whale. Conversations go deeper.

This trip was different for another reason. Instead of Sean or Chris joining me, I brought my niece River.

River is 17, lives in Wausau, and is one of those people who was just built for a crowd. She's a talented singer and performer, and that ease with an audience transferred immediately to a gym full of kids holding fossils and asking questions. She told me afterward that her favorite part was watching kids' eyes pop when something amazed them.

She found out fast that it happens a lot.

At one point, a young boy was examining our replica T. rex jaw. River leaned in.

"Do you like dinosaurs?"

He nodded.

"What's your favorite?"

"T. rex!"

"Well," she said, "the bone you're touching right now came from a T. rex."

She said he freaked out with excitment.

That's the moment. That's the whole program in about fifteen seconds. I've been doing this for fifteen years and it still gets me every time someone else gets to witness it for the first time.

Inside Clara, the crowd was warm and curious. We talked about whale milk, which has a consistency similar to room-temperature butter. I told them to think about that the next time they were putting butter on toast. The faces that followed, kids and adults alike, were exactly what you'd hope for.

We talked about whale intelligence, migration, and the sheer improbability of an animal this large existing on the same planet as us. The questions kept coming.

Before the event, I had a conversation with Connie, the librarian who helped make the day happen. We got onto the topic of science and how different people receive it differently. Her take has stayed with me: "We provide all the information available to us, and it's up to the people to do what they want with it."

I think that's exactly right. That's what a library does. That's what Forest Whales tries to do too. Show up, share what we know, and trust people to be curious.

Near the end of the day, four kids came back through Clara a second time. One boy in particular, maybe 12 years old, had that look in his eyes during the first tour, the one that says the information is landing somewhere real. He added his own details during the tour. He asked good questions. He was, for a few minutes, a co-tour guide, and those are some of my favorite moments in this whole job.

When the four of them came back, I decided to quiz them. Every fact I'd shared came firing back at me. Whale milk. Migration routes. Baby whales. Intelligence. They remembered all of it.

It turned into a game. They loved it. So did I.

200 people. One in ten residents of Juneau. Four kids who came back and knew every answer.

Some days, that's plenty.

Forest Whales brings hands-on marine science and paleontology programming to K-8 schools, libraries, and community events across Wisconsin and the Midwest. If you'd like to bring Clara to your community, reach out at forestwhales.com.