My life with the Eskimo By Vilhjálmur Stefánsson and Rudolph Martin Anderson 1922
Edited Stanley L. Klos 1999
The Bowhead Whale, the largest animal of the
Arctic regions, if not directly the most important animal, on account of being
the chief means of support of a number of Eskimo communities, has, through the
large fleets of vessels engaged in the whaling industry, indirectly been the
most responsible agent for bringing the white man's civilization into the
western Arctic, with its concomitant effects upon population and fauna. Although
whaling had long been prosecuted in the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean west of
Point Barrow, the first ship wintered at Herschel Island in 1889-1890. Later
other ships wintered at Baillie Island, Langton Bay, Cape Parry, and two small
schooners even wintered as far east as Victoria Island. Whaling was prosecuted
independently by Eskimos from Cape Prince of Wales, Point Hope, to Cape Smyth
and Point Barrow, Alaska, and east of the Mackenzie, at Warren Point, Baillie
Islands, Langton Bay, and other points, before the advent of white men. The
Eskimos were accustomed to pursue the whale from their skin-covered umiaks and
kill them with stone-headed lances, valuing the whale for its meat and blubber
and not for the "whalebone" or baleen. Nowadays there is no Eskimo whaling east
of Point Barrow, and the western Eskimos use modern weapons. The whaling
industry by white men has become practically dead within the past few years. One
ship and one gasoline schooner, the only vessels which whaled in the Beaufort
Sea, killed twelve whales apiece during the summer of 1912, but the voyages were
considered unprofitable on account of the unsaleability of bone. The largest
number of ships which wintered at Herschel Island at one time was fourteen in
1893-1894. The largest catches are said to have been 69 whales by Captain Smith
in the Narwhal, 1893-1895; 67 whales by Captain Norwood in the Balcena in
18931895, and 64 whales by Captain Bodfish in the Beluga in a two-year voyage
about the same time. At that time whales were frequently killed near Herschel
Island and Baillie Islands, but now they are much less seldom seen inshore. A
good many Bowhead Whales are killed in the spring by the Siberian natives at
their whaling stations at Indian Point, Plover Bay, and East Cape. Whalers -say
that in the spring the Bowheads do not follow the Siberian coast farther than
East Cape, but strike across from there to Point Hope, Alaska, and follow up the
American coast around Point Barrow, passing Point Barrow, going to the eastward
from about April 20th to June 1st. After the Bowheads pass Point Barrow in April
and May, little is known of their movements. Whalers are apt to be met
with anywhere in Amundsen Gulf in July and August, as early as ships can get out
of winter quarters. Whales are sometimes seen spouting offshore in Franklin Bay
early in June. In August, in the region between Cape Parry and Banks Island, the
whales usually seem to be coming south along the west side of Banks Island, and
going west, although they often are seen in Franklin Bay until September.
Following them up, the whalers usually find whales most abundant on the
"offshore" or "pea-soup grounds" off Capes Dalhousie and Brown, where the water
is rather shoal, eighteen to thirty fathoms. The whales often remain here for
some time and if scared away, soon come back. Whales killed here sometimes have
mud on their backs as if they had been rolling on a mud bottom, i.e., whales
which are killed without sinking. A dead whale which sinks to the bottom often
brings up mud as a matter of course. Bowheads have been chased into fresh water
three fathoms deep near Pullen Islands, off the mouth of the Mackenzie River. No
parasites are found on Bowhead Whales, like the barnacles and "lice" found on
Right Whales and Humpbacks.
The method of Bowhead whaling is to cruise about under sail, keeping a sharp
lookout from the masthead during the whole twentyfour hours. Bowhead Whales are
very easily frightened and are very seldom if ever seen from a steamship while
the propellor is working. Furthermore, after a whale is struck by a bomb, it is
extremely infrequent for another whale to be seen in the same vicinity for an
hour or more, even though there may have been many in sight before. When a whale
is " raised," the ship lowers all its available whale-boats. Each boat usually
has a ship's officer as boat header in the stern-sheets, a boat-steerer
(harpooner) in the bow, and a crew of four oarsmen. A whale usually stays below
the surface for a regular period, from twenty minutes to an hour or more,
according to his individual peculiarity. When up, the whale moves slowly along,
the top of back just above the water, sometimes just below, making a wake, every
minute or two blowing up a white column of vapor to a height of from eight to
twelve feet. After spouting several times the whale usually "turns flukes,"
raises his tail out of water, and dives down. After two or three risings, the
boat-header can usually tell the rate of speed at which the whale is traveling,
the direction of his course, and the time he is apt to stay below. The boat
heads for the place of his probable reappearance, keeping a little to windward
if possible. AYhen the whale spouts again, the boat-header tries to run the boat
directly across the top of the whale's head, the most favorable chance. As the
boat passes over, the boat-steerer (harpooner) in the bow thrusts one or two
tonnite (or sometimes black-powder) bombs into the whale's neck with the
darting-gun. The darting-gun is a heavy lance-shaft with set-gun at tip. When
the point of the harpoon enters, a stiff parallel wire explodes the eight-gauge
cartridge which shoots the bomb into the whale. The handle is immediately
disengaged, the barbed harpoon-head remaining in the wound, and attached to the
lance-warp (rope), of which ten fathoms are kept in a box in the bow and one
hundred or more fathoms in a tub in the boat. Sometimes a shoulder-gun is used
after the darting-gun, if opportunity offers. The shoulder-gun is a heavy
eight-bore, shooting a long feathered tonnite bomb with no warp attached. If
struck fairly in the neck vertebrae, a whale is sometimes killed instantly with
one shot, but sometimes eight or ten shots are required. The whale often tows a
boat a long distance if only slightly wounded, and is sometimes lost by going
under a large ice-field. As soon as the whale is " struck " by one boat, the
other boats come up as soon as possible, and as the whale rises he is struck as
often as possible. On small ships the whalebone baleen from the upper jaw is
sometimes cut off in the water, but on the larger ships the upper portion of the
whale's skull is cut off and hoisted on deck entire, and the bone removed later.
Ordinarily the practice of the Bowhead whalers in recent years has been to
remove only the baleen, turning the carcass with its fifty or more barrels of
oil, adrift. This is a most wasteful practice, but when "bone" was high in
price, a single whale might be worth $10,000 in bone, and the captains preferred
not to spend a day saving a thousand dollars' worth of oil, and perhaps lose a
possible second whale. The meat of the Bowhead is good, the young whale's flesh
in particular being much like beef. The "blackskin," or muk-tok, as it is called
by the Eskimo, is considered a great delicacy, being usually eaten raw by the
Eskimo, and boiled fresh or pickled by the white whalers. At Point Barrow,
Alaska, the "floe-whaling" is done principally in Eskimo skin-umiaks, and the
whalebone is cut out at the edge of the floe. A male which I saw killed August
23d, 1910, in Franklin Bay, was about 57 feet long, flukes 18 feet 4 inches
across, and right fin or flipper 10 feet 4 inches around outer curvature. The
whale yielded 2100 pounds of whalebone, the longest slabs (from middle of jaw)
being about 11 feet in length. Delphinapterus catodon (Linn.).
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