CHAPTER II.
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 wasnot 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 itsreappearance 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 witha 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 ofNorth 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 properplaces 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 thewhales 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.