By BERT WHYTE

‘YY one thousand years ago-.

hardy Norwegians, armed only
With primitive spears and har-
B90ns set out in tiny boats’ on
the most dramatic of all sea
hunts — pursuit of the whale,
biggest animal in the world.

1 the same period, and con-
tinuing down to less than a cen-
tury ago, the Eskimos along the
Arctic Coast and the Nootka In-
dians on the Pacific Coast hunted
the leviathan in kyaks and canoes,
Wielding puny spears.

_Then in 1864 a Norwegian,

end Foyn, invented the har-
Poon gun, and whale-hunting be-
came a busines — albeit the most
@gerous of all sea industries.

fi Bellying canvas gave way in
me to blunt-nosed steam whal-
fts; race of a whaleboat with the
@tpoon man ready in the prow
Was replaced by the harpoon gun-
he Crouched behind his lethal
prepon on the steel prow of a
€am-driven whaling ship.

Whale oil was the chief prize
ie to light the lamps of the
i At And whalebone—used in
seeth. of the sperm whale. And

bilious, foul-smelling accretion
in own as “ambergris” found float-
ra ™ lumps up to 200 pounds,
ne at times has been worth
hie its weight in gold—and
A ch is used, ironically enough,

9 fixture for delicate perfumes.

aren came disaster. First hard

Bete Was ‘dealt by the rise of the

Oleum industry, which sharp-

Y Teduced the demand for whale

Next, women stopped wear-

the Whalebone-reinforced corsets;

ain eset Manufacturers who re-

ag €d in business found steel
Satisfactory as whalebone.

we 1871 practically the entire
ctic whaling fleet was de-
ts by ice, ending big-scale
eee on this continent for
RY years,
Batt the industry made a come-
tent About the turn of the
if Ury Norway began sending
of 1; factory ships, with a covey
Vise Sht whaling vessels to ser-
pedi on long Antarctic ex-
cony, Ons. They learned ‘how to
fae tt Whale oil into hardened
Possip € harpoon gun made it
blue v& to Kill the large fin,
¥y ¢6 Sei and humpbacks, former-
dus Sidered too fast and danger-
Sto hunt,

De
the

Stroyed

Mand for glycerine during
ing St World War gave whal-
lang nother shot in the arm. Eng-
sap,’.J2Pan and other countries

Ot €xpeditions to the Antarctic. °

in parts of the whale were found

~ Of value; the whale became
Bang © Rot only of oil but of
Meal” Meat, stock and poultry
~~", leather and glue. :

as than 20,000 whales a year

- Killed, and by 1930 many
les were in danger of extinc-
€ League of Nations set

Weta con and 26 nations
an
ion of Whaling (it was amend-

dustry nD which saved the in-

ae Nootka Indians, who went
of \° hunting off the west coast
Only @2couver Island, were the
e ) be which dared to tackle
But A Tgest creature of the deep.
tive 71°. awe with which all Na-
fan b dians regarded the’ whale
the jg7) °c from the fact, that
-thangeit Whale, along with the
Symbci etd, was one of the chief
“Sols in their totem poles.

aa haling as a B.C. industry be-
tigne 11905 when two Nova Sco-
Captaj aptain Reuben Balcom and
thi, @ Sprott Balcom, came to

i E

in Province to enter the sealing
dy ry.

2 With a Ww

Instead they teamed
ell-known coastal navi-

ies’ corsets. And the fine ivory,

‘at _Kyuquot.

4 Convention for the Regu- ,

_ A thousand

years of whaling

The largest and amon

an entire lumber camp having to be moved fr

gator, Capt. William Grant, and
established the Victoria Whaling
Company.

First whaling stations were at

Sechart on Barkley Sound and
The company pur-
chased six 102-ton whalers for
$50,000 each and brought them
around the Horn. from Norway.
They were to ply their trade in
West Coast waters for nearly 40
years. |

The company eventually came
under control of a Seattle group
under the name of the Consoli-
date Whaling Corporation. For
several seasons prior to the Sec-
ond World War the whaling
grounds were so depleted that
the firm barely made expenses.
In the early part of the century
1000 whales a year was a normal
catch. From 1910 to 1924 the
average catch was 574. The fig-
ure continued to drop although
new stations were’ established at
Rose Harbor and Naden Harbor
in the Queen Charlottes.

of the Second World War
bes an abnormal demand for
oils and fats and revived the Nor-
wegian and Atlantic whaling in-
dustry. But Consolidated wound
up its operations in 1942 and
“finis” appeared . to have been
written to whaling off the B.C.

coast.

: idated
In 1947 five of the Consoli ite
vessels went under the auction-

EEN

g the worst-smelling of living mammals, whales were once the cause of
om Belize Inlet on the B.C. coast.

eer’s. hammer at Victoria for
$1,465 and four went to the junk-
yard immediately.

8

Sometimes obituaries are writ-
ten before the patient dies. Like
Moby Dick, the white whale in
Herman Melville’s classic, the
B.C. whaling industry eludes
death.

Revival of whaling came in

1948, when Western Whaling
Company opened a modern shore

station at Coal Harbor, sent out

three ships late in the season,

the Nahmint, Saanich and James
Carruthers, and brought in 182
whales. B.C. Packers later took
over the operation, and now has
three. steam whalers (Globe VII,
Bouvert 3 and Polar 5) and two
diesel ships, the Nahmint and the
Tahsis.

These ships brought in’ 460
whales in 1952 and 539 last year.

Crews of the whaling ships and
workers at the Coal Harbor plant
are members of the United Fish-
ermen and Allied Workers Union,
which has negotiated annual con-
tracts since the industry was re-
vived in 1948.

Alex Gordon of the UFAWU
was a guest on the Nahmint a
few years ago for a day’s hunting
off Cape Scott and after watching
a huge sperm whale break the
surface and blow its vaporous

spout 20 feet into the air, likened
a whale to a locomotive.

“In the first place a whale
weighs as much as a good-sized
locomotive—from 40 to 60 tons,”
said Gordon. “In the second
place, the portion of a sperm
whale showing above the water
looks something like the top pro-
file of a railway engine, from the
bloWhole which is located in
about the same position as the
stack on an engine and from
which comes periodic blasts of
steam, to the dorsal fin which
looks like a large locomotive
sand dome.”

“Whalepower” is also easier to
calculate in terms of the pull of
a locomotive than in adding up
horsepower.

A whale usually sounds to the
ocean depths when harpooned,
but on one occasion when the
Nahmint gunner’s harpoon miss-
ed a vital spot, a big sperm set
eff across the broad Pacific with
the ship in tow. The engines
were put half astern but proved
powerless against the mighty
drive of the leviathan which tow-
ed the vessel for two hours at a
speed of six knots. !

Usually, however, when the
harpoon sinks in and its warhead
explodes, the whale will’ sound.
But he has to come up for air
(whales usually breathe once
every 15 to 20 minutes, but can
stay down for as long as an
hour) and when he breaks the

- block in Canada.

surface the winchman “plays”
him like a fisherman plays a sal-

_ mon, while the gunner seeks a

chance to take another savage
stab at his prey.

Once dead, the whale is hauled
to the side of the ship, a mem-.
ber of the crew thrusts a spear-
like point attached to an air hose
into the carcass, and compressed
air is pumped into the huge
mammal to keep him afloat.-Then
a red flag is stuck into him, he
ls moored to a buoy and the
ship continues the hunt.

When the ship brings its catch
back to Coal Harbor—a wartime
RCAF base—a winch hauls the
big-bellied animals up a concrete
slipway and onto the “plan” or
carving-up floor, which has been
described as the biggest butcher-

»

Carving experts, called “flens-
ers,” use hoekey-stick size knives
to make skilful preliminary cuts,
then a winch tears off the whale’s
blubber—a 15 or 20-ton “over-
coat” which keeps the mammal
warm in the cold waters of the
Pacific and also enables him to
descend to great depths without
being crushed by water pressure.

A converted power saw is used
to carve up the bone and meat;
big “scoop” trucks carry the meat
and bone to reduction tanks. Just
as Chicago packers boast they
“use everything in the pig but
the squeal,” so the experts at
Coal Harbor boast that no part of
the whale is wasted.

Across their gigantic butcher
block go 50-ton humpbacks and
sperm whales, sei whales and the
bigger finbacks, “the greyhounds
of the sea.”

&

Most hated Whale is the ocra,
or “killer whale.” Flaunting
pirate colors of black or black
and white, he is, next to man,
the worst enemy of all other
species of whale.

The killer whale is described
as having “the appetite of a hog,
the cruelty of a wolf, the cour-
age of a bulldog and the most
terrible jaws afloat.” .

Only 16 to 25 feet in length,
the “killer” can destroy the larg-
est whales in the ocean. He has
been seen to devour four por-
Poises in succession, and as many
as 14 seals have been found in
his belly.

Besides the dreaded “killer,”
other enemies of whales include
barnacles, which retard their
speed; and lice, which make them
miserable.

Despite these enemies, most
whales live to a great old age.
In fact, they outlive all other
mammals.

All whales are afflicted with
halitosis, which doesn’t seem to
interfere with their love life—
whales are polygamous—but can
be distressing to humans.

A writer in Shakespeare’s time
described the odor from a blow-
ing whale as “a fumous smell
most stinking.” Whale hunters
who have caught a whiff say a
herd of goats smell like Chanel
No. 5 in comparison.

Tf you think I exaggerate, re-
call the case here in B.C. where
a whole lumber camp had to
move from Belize Inlet, near
Kingcome Inlet, opposite the
north top of Vancouver Island,
because. of whales’ breath.

The steep shores of the inlet
prevented building on land, so
the company erected its homes
and bunkhouses on floats. Un-
fortunately, a school of whales
fancied that cove as a playing
ground; Their odor proved so
offensive that after a few weeks
the logging company decided to
tow the whole settlement to a
new anchorage!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE MAGAZINE SECTION — JUNE 25, 1954 — PAGE 3