INTRODUCTION
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHORE WHALING
Although the commercial products of whales have contributed largely to the comfort and welfare of the civilized world for over a thousand years, never have the animals been of greater economic importance than they are today.
It is true that the magnificent fleet of ships which had its birth in the New England States has passed away, and that the smoke of cotton-mills now drifts over the famous old city of New Bedford where once the harbor was filled with the towering masts of scores of whaling vessels.
But as one chapter of whaling history closed another opened and the scene shifted to Norway where Tønsberg, a little city in Christiania Bay, has become the Alpha and Omega of the modern whaling alphabet. It was there, in 1864, that Svend Foyn invented the harpoon-gun and brought into existence the sturdy little steamships which were destined to take the place of New England’s fleet, destroyed by the Confederate raiders during the Civil War.
Although despised by the “deep-water” whalers of New Bedford, nevertheless shore whaling has rapidly grown into a world industry which today, in the height of its prosperity, yields a revenue of nearly $70,000,000 a year.
In the old days only three species, the sperm, bowhead and right whale, were hunted and until Svend Foyn invented the harpoon-gun the fin whales, of less commercial value, were seldom captured. Their yield of oil was so small, and the whalebone so short and coarse, that if these products alone were utilized they were not worth the trouble of killing. Moreover, the great speed of the animals in the water and their tendency to sink when dead made them unacceptable to the men who hunted in a small boat with a hand harpoon and lance.
With the development of steam whalers the situation was changed, for they made possible the capture of “finners” in sufficient numbers to warrant the erection of stations at certain points on the shore, near the feeding grounds of the animals, where the huge carcasses could be brought in and converted into commercial products.
The perfection of the harpoon-gun and steam whale ships came only after long discouragement and persistent effort upon the part of Svend Foyn. Foyn was born in Tønsberg in 1809, and died there in 1894. He went to sea at fourteen in the merchant service and later entered the sealing fleet where he eventually made considerable money. It was while sealing that he conceived the idea of capturing the fin whales with a bomb harpoon, and 360,000 kronen were spent in experimenting before he succeeded in building a suitable gun and vessel.
In 1864 he went to Finmark for the first time in the small ship Spes et Fides, but caught nothing and was equally unsuccessful in the two following years. In 1867 he secured the first whales at Vardö, in Varangerfjord, and the next season killed 30. In 1869 he went north with two ships but got only 17 whales, and in 1870 only 36. It was in this year that at Kirkeö the first factory for converting whale flesh into guano, or fertilizer, was built and successfully operated. Foyn’s best years were between 1871 and 1880, when 506 whales were killed, having a value of about 2,000,000 kronen.
In 1877 a competitive company began work in Jarfjord, and in 1881 two others started at Vardö and two in West Finmark near the North Cape. In 1882 Norway had 8 companies and 12 ships, and five years later 20 companies and 35 ships. In 1890 the whales began to show the effect of continual persecution, decreasing rapidly in numbers, and five companies shifted their operations to Iceland. In 1896 the 18 ships hunting there killed 792 whales, yielding 49,500 barrels of oil; in the same season 29 ships off the Finmark coast caught 1,212 whales.
From the very beginning the Norwegian fishermen were hostile to the shore whalers, for they believed that the whales drove the fish toward the land and into their nets and that their industry was being greatly injured by the slaughter of the animals. Although it has been clearly demonstrated that whales have no direct influence upon the movements of fish, nevertheless in 1903 the Störthing prohibited shore whaling altogether.
The efforts of the Norwegian whalers had been watched with interest in other parts of the world and in 1897 shore whaling began in Newfoundland; there it thrived amazingly, and by 1905 eighteen stations were in operation upon the island and in its immediate vicinity.
In 1905 the first shore station on the Pacific coast of America was built at Sechart, in Barclay Sound, on the west side of Vancouver Island. This factory was under the management of the Pacific Whaling Company, of Victoria, B. C., and although their first season was not a success, a revision of the methods of handling the carcasses resulted in a lucrative business being established. In 1907 a second fine station was erected at Kyuquot, one hundred miles north of Sechart.
About this time the Tyee Company was formed under the direction of Captains Hibberd and Barneson, and a station was constructed at Murderer’s Cove, on the southern end of Admiralty Island, Alaska. The hunting here was entirely conducted in the inland waters of Frederick Sound, and after a few seasons the whales became so reduced in numbers that operations had to be transferred to the open sea about Cape Ommaney, sixty miles away; the Tyee Company was later re-formed as the United States Whaling Company.
In 1910 the Pacific Whaling Company was sold to the Canadian North Pacific Fisheries, Ltd., with stations at Rose and Naden Harbor, Queen Charlotte Islands, and Bay City, Washington, besides the two Vancouver factories. Another establishment, known as the Alaska Whaling Company, started work at Unimak Pass, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and a Norwegian firm built a station on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
About the time Newfoundland became interested in shore whaling, the Russians and Japanese started operations along the coasts of Siberia and Japan, respectively. The Russian industry there was abruptly ended at the time of the Russian-Japanese war and has not since been resumed, but the Japanese have continued their work with great success and today vie with the Norwegians in the development of shore whaling, for by their methods almost every particle of a whale’s carcass is utilized for human consumption.
The Toyo Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha, of Osaka, is the largest whaling company in the world, owning fifteen stations and twice as many ships, and conducting operations in almost every part of the Japanese Empire.
The South African industry was founded by Mr. John Bryde, of Sandefjord, Norway, who in 1909 erected the first station in Durban and another in the following year in Saldanha Bay on the west coast. Stations have also been built at several places in Australia and Tasmania, and in New Zealand humpback whales are being caught in wire nets. This method is so unique that a description of it here may be of interest.
The station is owned by the Messrs. Cook Brothers and is located south of the Bay of Islands, at the village of Wangamumu. On their annual migrations the humpback whales often pass through a narrow channel just under Cape Brett, which separates a cluster of outlying rocks from the mainland, and makes an ideal spot to place the nets. Having a stretch of five hundred or six hundred feet and a depth of two hundred, the nets, meshed to seven feet and made of three-eighths-inch wire rope, are hung on strong cables buoyed by huge floats and drogues. When a whale is sighted from the coast, steam launches place the three nets, which are allowed to float loose, the principle being to so hamper the whale by the entangling wires that it falls an easy prey to the hunters. What happens when a whale is caught can best be told in the words of an eye-witness.
When the nets are in position the launches and attendant whale-boats, with their crews, take up their stations at some distance to watch for the upheaval and dancing float-line that marks the “striking” of a whale.... Suddenly a sort of shudder runs through the sea. There are tossing billows and wild commotions away by the bobbing float-lines. “Hurrah! She’s struck!” is the cry.
Away go the boats, each racing to be first “fast” to the struggling “fish” and so earn the bonus that rewards the winning crew.
A mighty gray-black head, entangled in a clinging web of wire, rears from out the water. Up, up, it goes till a huge bulk of body towers a good fifty feet in the air, its side fins thrashing wildly in a smother of foam. It curves in an arch and then, like an arrow, down go whale and net together for the “sound.”
Not for long, though. The upward drag of the bunched net-floats, and its necessity for breath, bring the “fish” quickly to the surface—a spouting, snorting, wallowing mass; mad with rage, wild with terror of the unknown, clinging horror that envelopes it.
Bang! bang! go the guns from each boat, in quick succession. Both irons are home and well placed. A wild quiver of flukes and fins, and the whale either “sounds” again or “races” along the surface, towing the boats after it at express speed. But the net holds fast, and at each new effort for freedom the victim becomes more hopelessly “wound up” than before.
Soon, exhausted with futile struggling, the whale comes to rest, and there is a momentary cessation of the mad fight as the leviathan pauses for breath. Huge, panting air-gasps are plainly audible aboard our launch at a distance of half a mile.
The crews are quick to seize the opportunity. With the lance-men ready in the bow, the boats sweep in, one on either side. “Steady with the lance.” “Now!” Eight-foot steel blades drive deep for the heart behind the pectoral fins.
A shiver, a hissing spout of water and blood, a wallow and roll of the huge, wire-tangled carcass, flashes of red and white foam in the sunlight, and the black heave of a twenty-foot fin that for one dread instant, scimitar-shaped, a falling wall of bone and sinew, hangs over the boat and its occupants. The boat’s crew back out like lightning, just in time. Down crashes the mighty flail, missing its blow by a barefoot. There is a roar and clap of many thunders, and jetting spurts of spray leap high into the blue.
The boats, backed clear, still hang to the lines, the crews watching events and waiting the end. It may be that the dying whale will “sound” again, or “race” in a final effort.
But, no. The lances have gone home. A few more wallows’ of despair, the great tail-flukes thrash the water with lessening force, and presently the huge body, inert, lifeless, lies quietly on the surface. Hawsers are made fast to the dead whale, and while the boats return to their stations to watch the remaining nets it is towed by the launch to the flensing jetty ashore.[1]
Since the beginning of the last century the sub-antarctic islands known as the Shetlands, South Orkneys, Falklands, South Georgia and Kerguelen have proved to be the greatest whaling grounds of modern times, and are today yielding nearly $35,000,000 per year—just one-half of the total world revenue derived from the shore whaling industry. On South Georgia alone, eight companies with headquarters in Norway, England, Scotland, and Argentina are in operation, and all the other islands have one or more stations or “floating factories.”
In South America there are several stations on the coast of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and operations are also being carried on at Spitzbergen, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, Greenland, and the Galapagos Islands. Shore whaling is, therefore, a world industry in the truest sense of the word.
A modern shore whaling station at Kyuquot, Vancouver Island, B. C. The flensing slip, carcass platform and wharf are shown in the foreground. In the background is the manager’s dwelling.
When it was discovered that in certain localities the whales were being rapidly killed off and the vessels had to hunt so far from the stations as to make the trip unprofitable, the “floating factory” was devised. This is a large steamship of five or six thousand tons which is fitted with huge boiling vats and can be moved about from place to place as the whales themselves travel. Usually two or three steamers operate from one floating factory for formerly when only the blubber was used and the carcass was turned adrift, one ship could not supply enough whales to make the work profitable. These factories are used most extensively on the South Atlantic grounds.
The Orion with three humpback whales at Sechart, Vancouver Island.
The modern shore station is usually situated in a bay or cove not far from the open sea. The flensing slip and carcass platforms are the most striking portions of the establishment, and these are surrounded by boiling vats, the machine for drying the flesh, the engine house, wharf, bunk houses, offices, and the dwelling of the manager, the whole forming an imposing group of buildings.
Many of the whaling stations have very comfortable quarters and those on the bleak islands of the South Atlantic are even luxurious. The manager’s house is often beautifully furnished, with electric light, bathrooms, and even steam heat, so that when one becomes accustomed to the all-pervading odor from the “dryer,” the station is a delightful place at which to work. Although each one differs in respect to food, nevertheless the meals are for the most part excellent, for the managers realize that if their men are to be contented they must be well fed.
The whaling ships usually return to the station each night and, if one is free from seasickness, furnish a rather inviting home for a short stay. They are trim, high-bowed vessels of about one hundred tons burden, ninety to one hundred feet long, and have a speed of from nine to twelve knots per hour. Round-bottomed to facilitate speedy manipulation, they ride the water like a cork but roll and pitch almost beyond belief in the slightest seaway.
Most striking of all the upper works is the harpoon-gun mounted upon a heavy iron support at the very bow. It is a short cannon, 51½ inches long, with a 3-inch bore, and turns easily upon a swivel up and down and from side to side.
At the butt end, under a short wooden handle, is an iron lever, the trigger, which when pressed upward explodes the gun. The charge is 300 to 375 drams of very coarse, black powder which is sewed up in a cheesecloth sack and rammed home from the muzzle; then come wads of oakum, hard rubber or cork, and wool, after which the harpoon, well greased, is pushed in and hammered solidly into place with a wooden mallet. Some guns require more powder than others but if too much is used the iron will be bent as it leaves the muzzle.
The harpoon is 76 inches in length, and has a double shaft, at the end of which are 4 twelve-inch flukes, or barbs; these are tied to the shaft but spread widely upon entering the whale’s body and prevent the iron from drawing out. The harpoon is tipped with a hollow point, called the “bomb,” which is filled with powder and ignited by a time fuse set for the desired interval. Three or four seconds after the gun is fired the bomb bursts, frequently killing the whale almost instantly.
The harpoon is made of the best Swedish iron and weighs one hundred and ten pounds. After it has been fired into the body of a whale it is usually badly bent and twisted, but the tough, elastic iron can be straightened by the station blacksmith and made as good as new.
The harpoon-gun on the Rex Maru. The gun is loaded and the harpoon is shown projecting from the muzzle; coiled on the iron pan below is the rope which is carried with the iron in its flight. The winch may be seen in front of the bridge at the left of the picture.
A large ring slides easily along the double shaft of the harpoon, and to this one end of a five-inch rope is fastened. Forty or fifty fathoms of a somewhat smaller line, called the “forerunner,” are coiled on a heavy iron pan just under the gun, giving slack to be carried with the harpoon as it flies through the air.
From the pan the rope passes backward over a roller in the bow of the ship to a double winch just in front of the bridge and down into the hold, where a thousand fathoms (6,000 feet), or more, are carried. By means of the winch the whale is “played” as one would use a reel on a fishing rod, and after the animal has been killed it is hauled to the surface and fastened to the side of the ship.
The harpoon lines are made of the finest Italian hemp and tested for a breaking point of eighteen tons, but the forerunner is tested for only fifteen or sixteen tons. Some, made especially for use in hunting the giant blue whale, will resist a strain of twenty-eight tons. If a tight line is kept and there are no sudden jerks the ropes seldom break.
Not far beyond the winch the mast is stepped, bearing near its peak a small barrel, called the “crow’s nest,” from which the whales are sighted.
The vessels carry a crew of ten or twelve men beside the captain, who is usually also the gunner. In Japan vessels are required by the coasting laws to have a Japanese in command, and consequently a native captain is employed who takes the ship in and out of the harbor. He is really the pilot, and the vessel is turned over to the Norwegian gunner as soon as the open sea is reached.
The harpoon is tipped with a hollow point called the “bomb,” which is filled with powder and ignited by a time fuse. The barbs, or flukes, are tied to the shaft of the iron.
The harpoon after it has been fired into the body of a whale. The bomb has exploded and the shaft is bent.
Although in various parts of the world I have met two or three gunners who were not Norwegians, there are not many such. From their Viking ancestors the Scandinavians have inherited their love for the sea and, since Svend Foyn’s time, Tønsberg has sent forth her sons to the whaleships much as did New Bedford half a century ago. Thus the present generation has grown up as the industry developed, and from boys to men they have seen it in all its phases and learned not only how to shoot a whale but how to handle it afterward, which is fully as important.
A trial shot with the harpoon-gun. The harpoon line is shown, and three men may be seen in the barrel at the mast head.
Even as the harpoon-gun brought with it a new era of whaling, so it gave to the scientist undreamed-of opportunities for the study of cetaceans. Until shore stations were established, few indeed were the naturalists who had examined more than five or six whales during their entire lives. These carcasses were usually of whales which had met with some accident at sea and had been cast up on the beach; almost always the animals had been dead for days before they came under the notice of a competent scientific observer, and had lost much of their original proportions and color. A whale’s body begins to generate gases at an astounding rate as soon as the animal is dead, and within a very few hours becomes so swelled and distorted that the true proportions are almost lost. Even trained naturalists did not always take this fact into consideration, and their descriptions and figures were consequently notable chiefly for their inaccuracy.
It is only within a very few years that it has been generally recognized how rapidly cetaceans change color when dead, and often in scientific papers whales are described as “black” which are never black in life. By far the greater number of whales and dolphins have various shades of slate, or gray, on the upper parts, and if exposed to the sun for a few hours these portions turn jet black.
Again, there is in all cetaceans great variation among individuals of the same species, and whales from the same school or “pod” may differ widely in proportions and general color. Some may be long and slender, others short and thick; one may have a light gray back and pure white underparts, while a second, taken from the same herd, is dark slate above and strongly shaded below; and, moreover, the skeletons often vary almost as greatly as the external characters.
A near view as the gun is fired at a target. The harpoon rope is visible through the smoke.
Quite naturally when these extremes came under the notice of a scientist who had, perhaps, seen but three or four whales in his entire life, they were at once judged to be representative of different species and were given new names. This course cannot be wholly condemned, for under existing conditions it was almost the only one to be followed. Although it did put on record many valuable facts concerning the history of the animals, it also resulted in multiplying nominal species to such an extent that the work of later investigators in separating the valid from the invalid has become a herculean task; quite false conclusions as to the distribution of the various whales were also drawn, which only a vast amount of labor and study can rectify.
The number of whales taken during a season varies greatly with the locality, but at one of the Vancouver Island stations when I was there in 1908, three hundred and twenty-five were killed in seven months by one ship. In a single week twenty-six whales were captured, and on June 10, the S. S. St. Lawrence, Captain Larsen, brought in four humpbacks, one blue whale, and one finback.
Whales are such enormous creatures that the ordinary methods used in the study of other animals cannot be applied to them. Instead of having actual specimens before one for comparison, a naturalist must depend almost entirely upon photographs, notes, measurements, and descriptions.
Until shore whaling began such data were rare and most unsatisfactory. When a whale is cut in as it lies along the side of a ship, it is never possible to see the entire animal at once; it is almost impossible to secure photographs of real value for comparative work, and even measurements can be taken only with difficulty and not without a large percentage of error. Internal anatomical investigations are out of the question, because as soon as the blubber has been stripped off the carcass is turned adrift.
By the establishment of shore stations these difficulties have been largely eliminated. The whales are usually drawn entirely out of the water upon the slip where, before the blubber is stripped off, they can be measured, photographed, and described. As they are being cut in it is possible to make a fairly detailed study of the fresh skeleton and other parts of the anatomy—if the investigator is not afraid of blood and grease. Moreover the great number of whales of a single species brought to the stations allows a study of individual variation, which evidently is greater among some of the large cetaceans than in other groups of mammals.
Since shore stations are located in widely separated parts of the world, they have facilitated investigations of the distribution, life history, and relationships of large whales, which otherwise would have been impossible. Thus it is obvious that a naturalist who is fortunate enough to stay for some time at a modern factory has opportunities for original work such as were undreamed of before the days of steam whaling.
The directors of the companies, and the managers of the stations, have usually been glad to assist in the study of the animals which form the basis of their industry, and have generously extended the courtesies of their ships and stations. In some instances they have gone to considerable trouble to secure specimens which could be prepared and presented to museums in various parts of the world for exhibition and osteological study. It is deeply to be regretted that the wholesale slaughter of whales will inevitably result in their early commercial extinction, but meanwhile science is profiting by the golden opportunities given for the study of these strange and interesting animals. Thus, the old saying that “it is an ill wind that blows good to no one” applies very decidedly to the whaling industry.