SITUATION OF THE EARLY WHALE-FISHERY—THE MANNER IN WHICH IT WAS
CONDUCTED—AND THE ALTERATIONS WHICH HAVE TAKEN PLACE.
Immediately after the discovery of Spitzbergen by Hudson, in the year
1607, the walrus-fishers, who carried on an extensive and profitable
business at Cherie Island, finding the animals of their pursuit
become shy and less abundant, extended their voyage to the northward,
until they fell in with Spitzbergen, the newly discovered country,
about the time when the Russian Company equipped their first ships
for the Greenland whale-fishery. As the coast abounded with whales
and sea-horses, Cherie Island was deserted, and Spitzbergen became
the scene of future enterprize. At this time, the mysticetus was
found in immense numbers throughout the whole extent of the coast,
and in the different capacious bays with which it abounds. Never
having been disturbed, these animals were unconscious of danger;
they allowed themselves to be so closely approached that they fell
an easy prey to the courageous fishermen. It was not necessary that
the ships should cruise abroad, throughout the extended regions of
the Polar Seas, as they do at the present time, for the whales being
abundant in the bays, the ships were anchored in some convenient
situation, and generally remained at their moorings until their
cargoes were completed. Not only did the coast of Spitzbergen abound
with whales, but the shore of Jan Mayen Island, in proportion to its
extent, afforded them in like abundance.
The method used for capturing whales, at this period, was usually
by means of the harpoon and lance, though the Dutch inform us that
the English made use of nets made with strong ropes for the purpose.
The harpoon, which was the instrument used in general practice for
effecting their entanglement, consisted, as at present, of a barbed
or arrow-shaped iron dart, two or three feet in length, to which was
attached a wooden handle, for convenience in striking or throwing
it into the whale. Fastened to the harpoon was a line or rope three
hundred fathoms in length; more than sufficient to reach the bottom
in the bays, where the depth of the water seldom exceeds eighty
or one hundred fathoms; so that on a fish descending after being
struck, the end of the line could always be detained in the boat.
The movements of this boat, of course, corresponded with those of
the whale; and so closely pointed out its position, that, on its
reappearance at the surface, the other assisting boats were usually
very near the place. It was then vigorously pursued, secured by a
sufficient number of harpoons, and lastly attacked repeatedly with
lances until it was killed.
The lance in use was an iron spear with a wooden handle, altogether
ten or twelve feet in length. The capture of the fish, in which,
owing to the particular excellence of the situation, they seldom
failed, being accomplished, it was towed by the boats, rowing one
before another “like a team of horses,” to the ship’s stern, where
it lay untouched from one to two or three days. The fat being then
removed was carried to the shore, where ample conveniences being
erected, it was afterwards subjected to heat in a boiler, and the
greater part of the oil extracted.
As the usual process of the early fishers for extracting the oil
may be interesting to some readers, I shall attempt to describe it,
following the accounts by captains Anderson and Gray, whose papers
are preserved among the manuscripts in the British Museum.
The blubber being made fast to the shore, a “waterside man,”
standing in a pair of boots, mid-leg in the sea, flayed off the
fleshy parts, and cut the blubber into pieces, of about two hundred
weight each. Two men, with a barrow, then carried it, piece by
piece, to a stage or platform, erected by the side of the works,
where a man, denominated a “stage-cutter,” armed with a long knife,
sliced it into pieces, one and a half inches thick, and about a
foot long, and then pushed it into an adjoining receptacle, called
a “slicing cooler.” Immediately beyond this cooler, five or six
choppers were arranged in a line, with blocks of whales’ tails
before them; and adjoining these blocks was another vessel, called a
“chopping cooler,” of two or three tons’ capacity. These men, being
situated between the two coolers, took the sliced blubber from the
slicing cooler, and, after reducing it into little bits, scarcely
one-fourth of an inch thick, and an inch or two long, pushed it into
the chopping cooler. These operations were carried on as near as
convenient to the place where the copper was erected.
The copper held only half a ton. It was furnished with a furnace,
and the requisite appendages. A man, designated “tub-filler,” with
a ladle of copper, was employed in filling a hogshead with chopped
blubber, dragging it to the copper, and emptying it in, until the
copper was full. A fire of wood was, in the first instance, applied,
but after a copper or two had been boiled, the finks or fritters
were always sufficient to boil the remainder without any other fuel.
When the blubber was sufficiently boiled, two men, called “copper
men,” with two long-handled copper ladles, took the oil and finks
out of the copper, and put it into a “fritter barrow,” which, being
furnished with a grating of wood in place of a bottom, drained the
oil from the fritters, from whence it ran into a wooden tank or
cooler, of about five tons’ capacity. Three coolers were usually
provided, and placed some feet asunder, a little below each other;
a quantity of water was put into each before the oil, and the oil,
whenever it came to a certain height in the first cooler, escaped
through a hole, by a spout, into the second, the same way into the
third, and from thence, by a plug-hole, into the casks or butts
in readiness for its reception. When the oil in these butts was
thoroughly cold, whatever it had contracted was filled up, and the
casks then rolled into the water, and, in rafts of twenty together,
were conveyed into the ship.
The whalebone was separated from the gum, or substance in which it is
imbedded, rubbed clean, packed in bundles, of sixty laminæ or blades
each, and taken to the ship in the longboat. Thus prepared, the cargo
was conveyed home, either when a sufficiency was procured, or the
close of the season put an end to the fishing occupations. While some
of the people belonging to the whale-ships were engaged in boiling
the blubber, the rest of the crew, it is probable, were occasionally
employed in the capture of other whales. Besides the buildings made
use of in boiling the blubber, the whale-fishers had other buildings
on shore for lodging the blubber-men in, and for the use of the
coopers employed in preparing the casks.
So long as the whales remained in the immediate vicinity of the
fishing establishments, the boats were sent out of the bay, the fish
captured at sea, towed into the harbour, stripped of the fat, and the
blubber boiled in the manner described; but as the whales increased
their distance, this plan of procedure became inconvenient, so that
the ships began to cruise about the sea, to kill the whales wherever
they found them, to take on board the blubber, and only occasionally
to enter a port. So far now from having occasion for empty ships
for carrying away the superabundant produce, it was a matter of
difficulty and uncertainty to procure a cargo at all; and, with the
most prosperous issue, there was not sufficient time for landing
the cargo and extracting the oil; the blubber was therefore merely
packed in casks and conveyed home, where the remaining operations of
extracting the oil, and cleaning and preparing the whalebone, were
completed. Hence, the various buildings, which had been erected at
a great expense, became perfectly useless; the coppers, and other
apparatus that were worth the removal, were taken away, and the
buildings of all the different nations, both at Spitzbergen and
at Jan Mayen Island, were either wantonly razed to the ground, or
suffered to fall into a state of decay.
When the whales first approached the borders of the ice, the fishers
held the ice in such dread, that whenever an entangled fish ran
towards it, they immediately cut the line. Experience, through time,
inured them to it; occasionally they ventured among the loose ice,
and the capture of small whales at fields was at length attempted,
and succeeded. Some adventurous persons sailed to the east side of
Spitzbergen, where the current, it is believed, has a tendency to
turn the ice against the shore; yet here, finding the sea, on some
occasions, open, they attempted to prosecute the fishery, and, it
seems, with some success, a great whale-fishery having been made
near Stansforeland, in the year 1700. The retreat of the whales
from the bays to the sea-coast, thence to the banks at a distance
from land, thence to the borders of the ice, and finally to the
sheltered situations afforded by the ice, appears to have been fully
accomplished about the year 1700, or from that to 1720. The plan of
prosecuting the fishery now underwent a material change, especially
in reference to the construction of the ships, and the quality and
quantity of the fishing apparatus.
When the fishery could be effected entirely in the bay, or even
along the sea-coast, any vessels which were sea-worthy, however old
or tender, were deemed sufficient to proceed to Spitzbergen, and
were generally found adequate to the purpose, especially as they
did not set out till the spring was far advanced, thereby avoiding
obstructions from the ice and from sudden and destructive storms.
When, however, the fishing had to be pursued in the open sea, new,
or at least very substantial ships, became requisite, and even these
it was found necessary to strengthen on the bows and stern, and on
the sides, by additional planks. A greater quantity of fishing-stores
also became needful. When fishing among the ice, the whales, after
having been struck, frequently penetrated to a great distance out
of the reach of their assailants, dragging the line away, until
at length they found it necessary to cut it to prevent further
loss. Hence, by the frequency of disasters among their ships, the
increased expense of their equipment, and the liability of losing
their fishing-materials, such an additional expense was occasioned as
required the practice of the most rigid economy to counterbalance it.
The destruction of the shipping by the ice, in the Dutch fleet alone,
was frequently near twenty sail in one year, and on some occasions
above that number. The Greenland men of the present day being mostly
ice-fishers, an account of the improved mode of fishing now practised
will be sufficient for the illustration of the method followed by the
Dutch and other nations at a more early period, particularly as the
way in which the whale is pursued and killed is pretty nearly the
same at this time as it was a hundred years ago.
Davis’s Strait, or the sea lying between the west side of Old
Greenland and the east side of North America, and its most northern
islands, has generally, since the close of the seventeenth century,
been the scene of an advantageous whale-fishery. This fishery was
first attempted by the Dutch, in 1719; after which period it was
usually resorted to by about three-tenths of their whalers, while
seven-tenths proceeded to Spitzbergen. This fishery differs only
from that of Spitzbergen or Greenland, in the sea being, in many
districts, less incommoded with ice, and in the climate being
somewhat more mild. The alterations which have taken place in it are,
in some measure, similar to those which have occurred at Spitzbergen.
The fish which, half a century ago, appear to have resorted to all
parts of the western coast of Old Greenland, in a few years retired
to the northward, but they still remained about the coast. Of late,
however, they have deserted some of the bays which they formerly
frequented, and have been principally caught in icy situations in
a high latitude, or in the opening of Hudson’s Strait, or at the
borders of the western ice, near the coast of Labrador.
Baffin’s Bay was suggested as an excellent fishing-station, by the
voyager whose name it bears, so early as the year 1616, when his
memorable navigation was performed. Baffin, in a letter addressed to
J. Wostenholm, esq., observes, that great numbers of whales occur
in the bay, and that they are easy to be struck; and, though ships
cannot reach the proper places until toward the middle of July, “yet
they may well tarry till the last of August, in which space much
business may be done, and good store of oil made.” To this situation,
where the whales have never been molested until recently, it appears
they still resort in the same manner, and in similar numbers, as
in the time of Baffin. In 1817, two or three of the Davis’s Strait
whalers proceeded through the strait into Baffin’s Bay, to a much
greater length than they were in the habit of adventuring, where,
in the months of July and August, they found the sea clear of ice,
and in some parts abounding with whales. A Leith ship, which, it
appears, advanced the furthest, made a successful fishery in lat.
76°-77°, after the season when it was usual for ships to depart. This
fact having become generally known, several other ships followed the
example, in the season of 1818, and persevered through the barrier
of ice lying in 74°-75° towards the north. After they had succeeded
in passing this barrier, they found, as in the preceding year, a
navigable sea, where several ships met with considerable success in
the fishery, at a very advanced period of the season. This discovery
is likely to prove of great importance to the fishery of Davis’s
Strait. Ships, which fail of success in the old stations, will still,
in the new fishery, have a reserve of the most promising character.
Hence, instead of this fishery being necessarily closed in July, the
period when the whales have usually made their final retreat from
the old fishing-stations, it will in future be extended to the end
of August at least; and it may ultimately appear that there will be
little danger of ships being permanently frozen up, unless previously
beset in the ice during any part of the month of September.