_ON SEALS AND SEALERS_
[Illustration: The S.S. _Sir Donald_.]
The hair seal, locally “swile,” affords to the Newfoundland fisherman
almost the only means of work in winter which will help him to eke out
the meagre living provided by his Labrador voyages. True, there is a
home frozen-herring trade, but it is limited to the west coast; and
also the new railway employs a certain number of men as long as the
inclemencies of winter allow work to proceed. But it is to the spring
sealing, or “going to the ice,” as they call it, that most look for
the extra few dollars to help fill the children’s mouths. Not long ago
every one could go to the ice, for then only sailing-boats went, and
the wealth reaped from the voyages passed mostly into the fishermen’s
pockets. Now all is revolutionized, and the sealing is in the hands
of half-a-dozen firms, that send out big steamers, carrying crews
numbering as many as three hundred men. Moreover, the value of seal-oil
has greatly decreased, and the expenses of the steamers eat up much of
the profit. There are not a few whom one hears growling, “Steam has
ruined Newfoundland.”
The hair seal, “Phoca Greenlandica,” must not be confounded with the
fur seal of the Pacific, for though the former is found in the Pacific,
the latter is never found in the North Atlantic. The fur seal is as a
rule larger, has much longer hands and feet in proportion to his body,
and also a much longer neck. He is apparently a much more powerful
swimmer. There are, however, several kinds of hair seal. The largest
is the hood seal. A truly magnificent animal, and one that shows
much courage in defending himself against his enemies. Sitting up on
his tail and hind legs, he defends himself with teeth and flippers,
protecting his head from injury by blowing out a bladder-shaped and
shot-proof excrescence on it. The usual method to kill a seal is to
hit it upon the nose with a club, called a seal-bat, but when once
fairly roused the bull hood seal is invulnerable there. An old sealer
described to me a battle between one of these fellows and a polar
bear, in which he told us the seal only yielded to be eaten after a
prolonged and bloody struggle. It takes two men at least to kill one,
for one man has to divert the animal’s attention by striking its tail,
while the other endeavours to hit it under the jaw as it turns round.
The most important hair seal, however, is the harp. It is the variety
which resort to the ice to breed in such countless thousands, and which
the sealing vessels go out in pursuit of. The process of breeding
is most interesting. The following account was given me by Captain
Blandford, of Newfoundland, perhaps the most successful of all the bold
sealing captains:—
“Soon after we got jammed in the ice there appeared from the water
four or five old seals, which scrambled up on to its surface. Within
five minutes there were 500 seals on it, and in half an hour 200,000
as nearly as we could guess. Scarcely had they come to rest on the ice
when they commenced throwing their young, and at once, after whelping,
those close to us, being somewhat frightened by the ship, jumped back
into the sea, leaving the little seals whimpering exactly like babies.”
The young are born about the 1st of March, and are very small, fat, and
snowy white, remaining so up till the 20th to 25th, _i.e._ about three
weeks, between which date and the 1st of April they are big enough to
take to the water. During this period they are known as “whitecoats.”
They grow so rapidly that you can almost see them growing, though on
the above occasion those close to the ship did not grow nearly as
rapidly as those farther away, for the dams were shy about coming to
give them suck.
The “whitecoats” are not large enough to kill until they are fourteen
days’ old, so that on this occasion the crew had to wait. Now, however,
by law no sailing vessel may leave for the ice until the 8th of March,
and no steamer till the 12th, under a penalty of $2,000, which gives
the seals a chance to get sizeable; nor is a vessel now allowed to make
a second voyage the same year, if she has once come back loaded. This
prevents the extermination of the mother seals. Great excitement always
exists when the sealers are about to start; sometimes it is necessary
to cut their way out of the harbour, in which they have been imprisoned
during the winter months, with dynamite, saws, and crowbars, the way
being cleared beforehand, that not an hour may be lost after the clocks
announce midnight of the 11th. This year, 1894, while blasting a way
out of the ice in Greenspond Harbour, the S.S. _Walrus_ was severely
damaged by the explosion of the dynamite, which shattered her bows, and
killed some of her men. The ice was ten feet thick.
The vessels may start from any part of the island, north or south, but
no one place is always best, the position of the seals varying every
season. There is much competition to get a place among the crews, and
the men are carefully selected for their pluck, energy, experience, and
physical capacities. These are queer-looking craft to the unaccustomed
eye these steam sealers of about 300 to 400 tons burden, with their
outside thick sheathing of hard wood, called “ice chocks,” and their
huge double stems, filled between with from nine to twelve feet of
solid oak, built for charging through floe ice. For when shut in the
steamer will back far enough to gain good impetus, and then dash full
at the weakest part of the floe. Usually the sloping forepost allows
the vessel to rise up on to the ice, the great weight then breaking
down into clear water. Anything loose on deck is of course upset, as
are any of the crew who happen not to be holding some support. All
are rigged with three masts, and can sail as well as steam; and the
screw being fixed in a slot can easily be pulled up out of the water
at these times. Each masthead is fitted with a barrel or crow’s nest,
from which a careful look-out for seals is constantly maintained. When
once discovered, the next thing is to keep them to yourself, and, if
possible, mislead any other vessels near, who might be apt to join in
and so lessen your prize. A captain, well known for his success, was
lately dogged in this way by a fresh hand. To mislead his rival the
captain steamed into one of the large bays, where, it so happened, he
got frozen in while the raw hand, turning out, caught a full voyage.
Once alongside the floe, the men jump off on to the ice, and at once
the work begins. Sometimes they work in pairs, one man shooting the
seals, and his chum, who is called “the dog,” following up, cutting
off the tail from the dead seal to “mark it,” and then gathering them
in heaps, and putting up a pole with a flag or a piece of liver as a
claim. These are then said to be “panned.” This is technically called
“swatching.” When shooting, 1,400 seals in a day is good work for a
crew, though they have killed 3,000; but when it is only necessary to
“club” them with the seal-bat, 25,000 have been killed in a day, and
47,000 in two days. Sculping (scalping?) is the next process—that is
taking off the skin and fat. This scarcely takes a minute. The seal is
thrown on its back, ripped up from chin to tail, and the fat and skin,
known as the “pelt,” are torn off. The body is no use, and is left on
the ice, except that occasionally the hearts are cut out and strung on
the hunter’s belts, as a reserve of food in case of necessity.
The mother seals show great sagacity in finding the particular hole,
through which she comes and goes for food, among so many thousand
others, and at once she finds her own little white pup. They will
evince much self-sacrifice in trying to rescue their offspring from
danger, at times carrying them in their fore flippers to escape being
nipped by ice, or drawing them into the water to teach them to swim.
Alas, after a sealer’s visit she will only find a quivering red corpse
when she returns. Let us hope she does not recognise it.
When another crew is also at work on the same patch of seals the
greatest expedition is naturally used, and under these circumstances
the seals will often only be “batted” and stunned, not stabbed to the
heart as well, before being skinned. It is this that has given rise to
the charges of cruelty, for the naked body has been seen to move around
after the operation. Otherwise there is no more cruelty in killing
seals than in killing cattle or poultry, and any man who is humane in
one will naturally be humane in the other; nor do I think you will find
anywhere a more humane set of men than you will among Newfoundland
fishermen.
Captain X. was once just forcing his way through ice towards a pack of
seals when he sighted a rival vessel coming up under his lee. Backing
out, he at once altered his course away from the seals to mislead the
other, but was too late to prevent them sighting his seals. The second
vessel, being much faster, now ran in between my friend and the ice,
and passing him on the starboard side gave the order “hard a starboard”
to force him out from his own cutting. Incensed at this, Captain X.
from the barrel shouted “hard a port,” and went straight for his
rival’s stem. Fortunately an intervening pan of ice prevented a fatal
accident, but he ran his bowsprit well over the other’s counter. All
hands from the foremost vessel were overboard and hard at work killing
and panning seals before Captain X. could land his men; so he shouted,
as his final order, “Hand aboard the dead seals; never mind killing
live ones,” and then, calmly descending, went and had refreshments with
the other captain in the other vessel’s cabin, while the crews were
left to fight it out as best they could. They are a brave, generous,
and skilful set of men, these sealing captains, and reck little of
danger or hardship.
Work proceeds during the night by torchlight, and the scattered fires,
with their ruddy glow on the heaps of dead seals and uncouth-looking
figures at work, must present indeed a weird sight. Now the pelts
have to be brought back to the ship; and in this work the physical
capacities of each hunter are tried to the utmost. Six pelts is a full
“tow” for one man. Often when the ice is hummocky, or perhaps broken up
into pieces, called “slob” ice, and it is necessary to jump from pan to
pan, or again when the distance from the ship is long, and the approach
of night or the fog render travelling almost impossible, are these men
tempted to abandon the hardly-won pelts, and get home themselves to the
ship and safety.
Sometimes one hunter will be long adrift from the steamer, and all the
rest being back, and all the seals in that patch boarded, the captain
is anxious to get off—how anxious, if the patch was a small one and
other seals are near, perhaps only a sealing captain knows,—for all
ships must be home by April 21st, full or empty. Yet though so much
depends on it a stray hunter has never yet been abandoned. It costs a
large sum to send these vessels to the ice, and a “clean ship” means a
big loss to the merchant, and no money for the men.
[Illustration: Eskimo on an Island near Okkak.]
Sharks, even in these latitudes, are not slow to gather at the smell
of slaughter, and can be caught with boathooks between the pans. It is
not a rare thing for men to slip off the pans into the water, and it
requires no little skill to get out again without help; for the water,
naturally, is very cold, and one is apt again and again to slip off
back into the water while trying to climb on to the ice. Acts of great
heroism are performed sometimes in rescuing a man thus endangered;
in one case, the pans being very small, it was not possible to stand
on one in order to pull the man out. The rescuer, therefore, quickly
throwing off his outer garments, came jumping from piece to piece,
making a grab at the struggling man as he passed, trying to push him on
far enough for him to catch hold. The second run he succeeded, but, of
course, himself ran great peril in the attempt. The vessels eventually,
loaded to the gunwales if they have been fortunate, return to St.
Johns, every hole and corner being used for stowing the pelts, so that
at times the crew will have to sleep wherever they can find a dry spot,
even on deck or in the boats.
Once in harbour, the fat is separated and put into enormous vats, the
oil being squeezed out from the blubber by their own weight, and being
eventually drawn off, clarified, and sold. Now, however, the blubber
is usually “rendered” by means of a steam mincer. The skins are salted
without being stretched, and are then exported “green,” for making
into leather for boot tops, gloves, etc. When the white coat is a year
old, he is dark in colour on the back, lighter on the belly, and is
known as a “bedlamer harp.” When he is three years old, a large black
saddle-shaped mark begins to appear over his back, and he is called a
full “bedlamer.” When he is four years old, the saddle is fully and
clearly marked, and the seal is then known as the “old harp.”
Seals, as is well known to those who visit Zoological Gardens, are very
easily tamed, and display almost the sagacity of dogs. Tales are told
of seals which have become so thoroughly tame that they will come and
lie before the fire, making friends with the dog and cat; while one,
when it had been found too expensive to keep, and had been taken out to
sea and dropped overboard, followed the boat ashore again and again,
even getting in at the window when the door had been shut against it.
The seal is used by the Eskimo for nearly everything. The stretched
coat of the bowel serves instead of glass. Their boats are entirely
of skin. Their clothing almost all skin. Their winter food almost all
seal meat and blubber. Dog food, dog harness, dog whips, etc., are all
of seal, or of walrus hide. Moreover, to the settlers, their skins for
boots and their fat for oil are invaluable.
In Labrador the “old harps” are caught either in the fall or spring,
when the sea is first freezing over or the ice first breaking up, and
always along shore, in one of the following ways. Strong twine nets,
with very large meshes, are anchored out on the bottom in about twenty
to thirty fathoms of water, off prominent headlands, or in the mouths
of bays and inlets known to be frequented by seals. These are buoyed
on the surface, and in these the seals mesh and drown themselves. This
industry is attended with much danger and hardship, for it involves
rowing out in all weathers in small boats to clear the nets. Sometimes
the buoys are under the ice, and the process known as “creeping” has to
be undertaken to find the nets at all, for it will not do to lose these
most valuable possessions.
If the nets are not recovered by New Year’s Day, they are lost; yet
occasionally they may be recovered immediately the ice goes in April,
when, the men tell me, both nets and seals in them are good; but if
much time elapses after the floe drifts off, both rot rapidly and are
destroyed by animalculæ.
Often hours must be spent “creeping,” and then, perhaps, only some
one else’s nets are taken, while all the while each must be carefully
watching the other to see he is not getting frostbitten. The nose,
ears, or chin will become frozen unknown to the owner and another will
cry out “your ears are dead,” the parts having turned snowy white.
Then begins the painful and tedious process of rubbing the part with
snow—woe betide the sufferer who goes in a heated room, or uses hot
water; for a certainty he will lose his ears or his nose—then the
creeping must be again proceeded with; or when the nets are partly
hauled bad weather will overtake them, perhaps a sudden squall from
the high land sweeps down on the little open boat, and the tragedy of
“the three fishers” is apt to be enacted over again. In one case, a man
described to me how, when out with his brother and another man, while
in the act of hauling into the boat a square flipper seal of larger
size than usual, the little craft capsized, and his brother, getting
cramp from cold, slipped off the bottom of the boat to which all three
were clinging. Fortunately, the other two managed, it being a calm day,
to hold on till a rescue was effected. It is cold work at best, and,
as one stalwart fellow said, “jest a bit hard, that when a man comes
home real hungry it should take him half an hour to get the ice off his
face before he can find his mouth.” “Yes,” chimed in another, “I lost
two toes and this ear,” showing that he had been cropped as if at the
pillory. I have myself seen the frozen breath hanging from men’s beards
and moustaches till, from nose to chest, it was one huge white mass.
The easier way of catching the “old harps” is with a submerged room
of net, resembling the cod-trap, with the difference that the wall
which is on the side the seals enter from is lowered to the bottom. A
watch is kept from the shore, and as soon as the seals enter the room
a rope attached to this wall is wound up on a capstan on the land, and
the seals are thus imprisoned. They are now given time to entangle
themselves in the net, and so get drowned, or the boat rows off and
the hunter shoots the seal before taking it out of the water; for the
seals would bite badly if given the chance. The net is thirty to forty
fathoms deep, and is set in about six to ten fathoms of water.
The last variety of hair seal is known as the “bay seal.” It frequents
the shores, bays, and mouths of fresh-water rivers, up which it breeds,
all the summer, and is caught either in mesh nets, or shot from a boat
as it puts up its head to breathe. This feat is rendered more easy by
the natural curiosity of the seal. As soon as it spies the boat it
raises its head and shoulders out of water to get a good view of the
stranger. If you now remain quite still, and especially if you can
imitate the “Hough, hough” of the animal, it will dive down and in a
minute come up nearer the boat. I have been almost ashamed to shoot as
it opened its large, human eyes, so full of inquisitiveness. “Bang!”
If you are a good shot, your seal will be dead, a bullet through his
brain, and you must at once row and pick him up while his few kicks
keep him afloat. I remember seeing one sink after being shot, as we
rowed off to the _Princess May_ from the shore one day. We stopped
over the spot, and peering down into the crystal water, could see him
ten fathoms down. Suddenly, one last kick—only it seemed a slight
movement—and the carcase rose to the surface for the last time. Up,
up! We watched it gyrating round and round, and as it reached the
surface, grabbed hold of one flipper and slung it into the boat. We
had one or two good meals off that fellow, for we hung him up from our
forestay, and the frosty air kept him sweet and fresh as long as we
needed him. Had he not arisen we should have got him up by means of our
“jiggers,” _i.e._, our heavy leaded hooks.
The Eskimo harpoon their seals from the kayak, occasionally shooting
it first; but shooting accurately from a kayak is no easy matter. The
harpoon is made of light wood, about three feet in length. On the end
of this is fixed a whole walrus tusk, to carry the loose barbed iron
top, and also to weight it and carry it truly home. As soon as the seal
is struck it dives, taking the harpoon with it, but as the harpoon
is attached by about twenty fathoms of walrus hide to an inflated
air-tight seal-skin, the hunter spies it, as soon as it comes up,
even if it ever succeeds in carrying the buoy down. A few strokes of
the paddle brings the kayak once more alongside, and the seal is soon
put _hors de combat_ with a lance, lashed on the back of the little
boat, and the hunter starts for home, or it is towed home alongside
the kayak. When one year old the bay seal is called a “jar seal,” and
its skin is poor; in the second year it is a “doter,” and becoming
speckled, in the third year, it is a “ranger,” and is then very
beautiful, being checkered silver and black all over.
[Illustration: Eskimo in Reindeer Tent, Okkak.]