In Nuu-chah-nulth tradition the Whale, whom the coastal peoples reckon among the great powers of the deep, is the adversary of the Thunderbird in the widely told myth of their cosmic struggle. Seized in the Thunderbird's talons and lifted from the sea, the Whale thrashes with such force that the mountains shake, trees are torn up, and the ocean rises to cover the land. As the embodiment of the chaotic strength of the sea, capable of loosing floods, earthquakes, and great waves, the Whale forms the counterweight to the sky-power of the Thunderbird, and some scholars read the story as a remembered account of the great Cascadia earthquake and tsunami of 1700.