Great lumbering swells of gray water rolling out of the fog from the wide sweep of the open Pacific were the picture I saw through the round, brass-bound frame of the porthole on the S. S. Tees. It was the last of May, but the cold of winter still hung in the sea air, and even when we drew in toward the foot of the mountains which poked their fir-clad summits far up into the mist clouds, I shivered in my heavy coat and tramped about on deck to keep warm. Finally when we were right under the towering mountain’s walls, we swung abruptly into smooth water, the long roll and pitch of the ship slackened and died, and we were quietly plowing our way up river-like Barclay Sound, which, from the west coast, cuts into the very heart of Vancouver Island.
It was hardly six o’clock in the morning when the wail of the ship’s siren whistle shot into the deep mountain valley where the station of the (former) Pacific Whaling Company is located at the one-time Indian village of Sechart. With a great deal of curiosity I strained my eyes through the fog to study the group of white frame buildings which straggled up from the water’s edge back into the valley.
Captain Balcom at the gun on the Orion.
I could see only one or two Indians, clad in dirty shirts and overalls, loafing about placidly staring at the ship, but by the time she had been warped in and the winch had started to swing aboard the great oil casks which lined the wharf, two pleasant-faced men appeared, one of whom I learned was Mr. Quinton, the station manager; to him my letters were presented. With him was Mr. Rolls, the secretary of the station, who showed me to a room at the house. I got out of my “store clothes” and came down to the wharf, now lined with men of six nationalities—for Norwegians, Americans, Newfoundlanders, Indians, Chinese, and Japanese are employed at these west coast stations.
Tied up to the side of the pier was the ship Orion. She was typical of all steam whalers, had been built in Norway and made, under her own steam, the long stormy passage across the Atlantic to Newfoundland. A few years of work there and she started for the Pacific around the Horn, beating her way northward to the scene of her present work at Sechart.
The Orion had not gone to sea that morning, for the fog outside made it useless to hunt; even if the ship could have kept her bearings in the mist it would have been impossible to see the spout of a whale, or to follow the animal if one were found.
The crew were all ashore, and I met Captain Balcom, an alert young Canadian, and one of the few successful gunners who was not a Norwegian. He offered at once to take me “outside” with him when the weather cleared but said we would see only humpbacks, for the blue whales and finbacks had not yet appeared on these hunting grounds. At Kyuquot, a station only one hundred miles farther up the coast, blue whales and finbacks were taken with the humpbacks in March as soon as the station opened, while at Sechart they did not come until July.
When the station was first located at Sechart, humpbacks were frequently taken in Barclay Sound but were soon all killed, and others did not take their places. At the time I was there, the Orion seldom found whales less than thirty miles at sea. She usually arrived about two o’clock in the morning, dropped her catch, and in half or three-quarters of an hour was again on the way out in order to reach the feeding grounds shortly after daylight.
I went aboard with Captain Balcom at ten o’clock and turned in on the Mate’s bunk. The cabin was small, but not uncomfortable, and it was not long before I was asleep. I did not even hear the ropes being cast off in the morning and only waked when the boy came down to call the Captain. We were well down the Sound when I came on deck, and were steaming swiftly along among little wooded islets half shrouded in gray fog. Far ahead the ugly, foam-flecked rocks of Cape Beale stretched out in a dangerous line guarding the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca; beyond was a sheer wall of mist shutting us out from the open sea.
The Captain was sure it was only a land fog hanging along the coastline, and that we would soon run through it into clear air. As the ship rose to the long swells of gray water and burrowed her way straight ahead deeper and deeper into the mist, everyone on deck was drenched and shivering. Fifteen minutes of steaming at full speed and the gray curtain began to thin; soon we ran out of it altogether.
There was not a big sea running, but the little Orion was dancing about like a cork. Balcom said, “It is calm weather so long as she keeps her decks dry,” and with this rather dubious comfort I settled down to get used to the tossing as best I could.
Everything was intensely interesting to me, for it was my first trip on a steam whaler. Already a man had been sent aloft and was unconcernedly swinging about with glasses at his eyes watching the water ahead. I learned later, when seasickness was a thing of the past, what a wonderful view can be had from the crow’s nest. The whole level sea is laid out below like a relief map and every floating object, even the smallest birds, shows with startling distinctness. And if it is comparatively smooth, one can look far down into the water and see a whale or shark long before it is visible at the surface or to those on deck.
Loading the harpoon-gun. “The charge is 300 to 375 drams of very coarse, black powder which is ... rammed home from the muzzle; then come wads of okum, hard rubber or cork, after which the harpoon ... is hammered solidly into place.”
Before we left the station, the harpoon-gun had not been loaded. The muzzle was plugged with a wooden block and the iron rope-pan drawn upward and tied against the gun’s support. When coming in from the last trip the vessel had encountered heavy weather, and the rope was taken off the pan to prevent it from being carried away by a wave and fouling the propeller. Now as we were nearing the feeding grounds, the Bo’s’n went forward to load the gun, re-coil the harpoon line, and see that all was clear and running smoothly.
The men on board were greatly interested in my camera and anxious that opportunities might be given for pictures. For two hours, with the Chief Engineer and the Mate, I sat aft on the great coil of towing line, used only in very heavy weather, listening to stories of the idiosyncrasies of whales, especially humpbacks. Their firm conviction was that one—never could guess what a “hump” was going to do—except that it would be exactly what was least expected.
The Engineer had just finished telling about a big fellow that a few days before had come up in front of the ship and swam towards it with his enormous mouth wide open, when the man in the barrel called down, “Whales on the port bow!”
I jumped as though a bomb had been exploded and grabbed my camera. The other men took things rather quietly, for the whales were still a long way off. The Captain tried to show me the spouts but it was several minutes before I could distinguish the white columns of vapor shooting up every few seconds.
Model of a humpback whale in the American Museum of Natural History. The model was prepared by Mr. James L. Clark, under the direction of Dr. F. A. Lucas.
There were three of them—all humpbacks. On the instant, the dark bodies slowly rounded into view and three huge, propeller-like tails were smoothly lifted out of the water, elevated vertically to the surface, and again drawn below. It is impossible to describe the ease and beauty of the dive. To look at the heavy body and long, ungainly flippers of a humpback one would hardly suspect that there could be grace in any movement, and yet the enormous animals slide under the surface as smoothly as a water bird.
“The man in the barrel called down, ‘Whales on the port bow!’”
When the flukes came out, the Captain rang for half speed, for the whales would probably be down several minutes. Turning the wheel over to the Mate, he went forward to the gun, pushed up the spring which cocked it, and waited, alert, for the animals to rise.
I had descended with him from the bridge and stood just behind the gun platform. The ship, her engines stopped, was rolling about on the mirror-like patches of water left by the whales as they went down. After ten minutes of waiting three silvery clouds suddenly shot upward a quarter of a mile away. Instantly the engine signal rang and the ship swung about, plowing through the water at full speed until the whales sounded. For two hours this kept on. Each time when we were almost within range the big fellows would raise themselves a little higher, arch their backs, and turn downward in a beautiful dive, waving their huge flukes as though in derision.
I had my notebook and pencil at work as well as the camera but it was getting pretty difficult to use either. The wind had risen and I was deathly seasick; even the best sailors lose their “sea legs” when aboard one of these little eggshell boats after a long period ashore, and mine were gone completely. The Orion was twisting and writhing about as though possessed of a demon, and every time she climbed a huge wave to rock uncertainly a moment on the crest and then plunge headlong down its smooth, green slope, I was certain she would never rise again. Balcom was doggedly hanging to the gun, but just after we had both been soaked by a big sea that came over the ship’s nose he shouted, “If we don’t get a shot soon we’ll have to leave them.”
At that time we were heading for the whales, which were spouting only a short distance away. One of them had left the others and seemed to be feeding. He was swimming at the surface, sometimes under for a second or two, but never far down. The ship slid nearer and nearer with engines at dead slow until the huge body disappeared not thirty fathoms away.
“In a minute he’ll come again,” shouted Balcom, feet braced and bending low over the gun.
I was clinging to a rope just behind him, trying to focus the camera, but the flying spray made it well-nigh impossible. Suddenly I saw the Captain’s muscles tighten, the tip of the harpoon drop an inch or two, and caught a glimpse of a phantom shape rushing upward.
Almost on the instant a blinding cloud of vapor shot into our very faces, followed by the deafening roar of the gun. I saw the black flukes whirl upward and fall in one tremendous, smashing blow upon the water; then the giant figure quivered an instant, straightened out, and slowly sank. For a moment not a sound was heard on the vessel save the steady “flop, flop, flop” of the line on the deck as the dead weight of forty tons dragged it from the winch.
Balcom leaned over the side and saw the rope hanging rigidly from the ship’s bow. “I must have caught him in the heart,” he said, “and killed him instantly.”
“Two men with long-handled knives began to cut off the lobes of the tail.”
As the Captain straightened up he shouted to the Engineer to check the line. Then began the work of bringing to the surface and inflating the dead whale. Taking a hitch about a short iron post, the harpoon rope was slacked and run through a spring pulley-block on the mast, just below the barrel, to relieve the strain of raising the great body. As the winch ground in fathom after fathom of line the vessel heeled far over under the tremendous weight. I was clinging to the ship’s side looking down into the water and soon saw the shadowy outline of the whale, fins wide spread, nearing the surface. As it came alongside a lead-weighted line was thrown over the tail, a rope pulled after it, then a small chain, and finally the heavy chain by which the carcass was made fast to the bow.
The winch had not yet stopped when two men with long-handled knives began to cut off the lobes of the tail to prevent the flukes from pounding the rail as the body swung up and down in the seaway. Already other sailors were working at a long coil of small rubber hose, one end of which was attached to an air pump and the other to a hollow, spear-pointed tube of steel, perforated along its entire length. This was jabbed well down into the whale’s abdomen, the engines started, and the animal slowly filled with air. When the body had been inflated sufficiently to keep it afloat, the tube was withdrawn and the incision plugged with oakum.
The other whales were a long way off when the ship was ready to start. The man in the “top” reported them as far to the south and traveling fast. As there was little chance of getting another shot that day and the wind was blowing half a gale, the Captain decided to turn about and run for the station.
We reached Sechart at 1:30 A. M. and the whale was left floating in the water, tied to the end of the wharf near a long inclined platform called the “slip”; then the Orion put out to sea and I went to bed at the station. I shall never forget my intense surprise next morning when I saw the humpback “cut in.” Work began at seven o’clock, and as the Manager had just awakened me, I ran out and did not wait for breakfast, thinking there would be ample time to eat when the operations were under way. It soon became evident, however, that there were no breathing spells when whales were being cut in, and every soul was at his work until the last scrap of flesh was in the boiling vats.
“A hollow, spear-pointed tube of steel ... was jabbed well down into the whale’s abdomen, the engines started, and the animal slowly filled with air.”
After a heavy wire cable had been made fast about the posterior part of the whale, just in front of the flukes, the winch was started. The cable straightened out, tightened, and became as rigid as a bar of steel. Slowly foot after foot of the wire was wound in and the enormous carcass, weighing at least forty tons, was drawn out of the water upon the slip.
One of the Japanese scrambled up the whale’s side and, balancing himself on the smooth surface by the aid of his long knife, made his way forward to sever at the “elbow” the great side fin, or flipper, fifteen feet in length.
Before the carcass was half out of the water other cutters were making longitudinal incisions through the blubber along the breast, side, and back, from the head the entire length of the body to the flukes. The cable was made fast to the blubber at the chin, the winch started, and the thick layer of fat stripped off exactly as one would peel an orange. When the upper side had been denuded of its blubber covering, the whale was turned over by means of the canting winch, and the other surface was flensed in the same manner.
It was a busy and interesting scene. The strange, unfamiliar cries of the Orientals mingled with the shouts of the cutters and the jarring rattle of the winch as the huge strips of fat were torn from the whale’s body, fed into the slicing machine, carried upward, and dumped into enormous vats to be boiled or “tried out” for the oil.
When the blubber was entirely gone, the carcass was split open by chopping through the ribs of the upper side and cutting into the abdomen, letting a ton or more of blood pour out and spread in a crimson flood over the slip. A hook was attached to the tongue bones (hyoids) and the heart, lungs, liver, and intestines were drawn out in a single mass.
The body was then hauled to the “carcass platform” at right angles to, and somewhat above, the “flensing slip,” the flesh was torn from the bones in two or three great masses by the aid of the winch, and the skeleton disarticulated.
Flensing a whale at one of the Vancouver Island stations. A great strip of blubber is being torn from the animal’s side.
After the bones had been split and the flesh cut into chunks two or three feet square, they were boiled separately in great open vats which bordered the carcass platform on both sides. When the oil had been extracted, the bones were crushed by machinery making bone meal to be used as fertilizer, and the flesh, artificially dried and sifted, was converted into a very fine guano. Even the blood, of which there were several tons, was carefully drained from the slip into a large tank, and boiled and dried for fertilizer. Finally, the water in which the blubber had been tried out was converted into glue.
The baleen, or whalebone, which alone remained to be disposed of, was thrown aside to be cleaned and dried as opportunity offered. The baleen of all the fin whales is short, stiff, and coarse and in Europe and America has but little value. In Japan, however, it is made into many useful and beautiful things.
I learned that the cutting operations at Sechart and the other west coast stations were conducted in the Norwegian way which is followed in almost all parts of the world except Japan. In the Island Empire a new method has been adopted, which, while it has the advantage of being very rapid, is correspondingly dangerous and will not, I think, ever be widely used.