Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the Arctic regions — Key Ideas to Explore

nd modern steam whalers were sent South to hunt these powerful rorquals or finner whales. The extent of this industry and the methods of modern whaling are described in the first part of this volume.

In the second part, which is concerned principally with bear-hunting in the Arctic regions, some description is also given of the old style of harpooning narwhals from small boats.

The publication of this volume has been held over owing to the war. Part of the text was printed off, and it contains references to events, current at the time, which, without this explanation, might puzzle the reader. The prices of the products of the whaling industry are for the same reason more up to date in the Appendix than in the text.

Planning a Modern Whaler—Towing a Whale—Our Whaler, the Haldane, in Shelter—Balta Sound, Shetland—We plan a Company—Our New Whaler, the St Ebba, in Tonsberg 17

Norway to Tonsberg—Comparison between the Old Viking Ships and our Modern Vessel—Similarity of Lines—Modern Methods of Whaling—“Modern Whales” compared with Old Style—Whales, Sperm—Right Whales—Finners—Tackling a Finner with Old Style of Gear—Whaling Stations—Utilisation of Whole Carcass—Whale Products—Modern Whaling in Southern Hemisphere—Stations round the World—Decrease and Increase in Numbers of Whales—Natural Close Season—Increase of Biscayan Whale 21

In Southern Norway—Building our Whaler—Cutting Lance Shafts—Tanks—Whale Lines—Outfit for Prolonged Cruise—Rigging and Arrangements of Hull—Our Harpoon Guns—The Henriksens of Tonsberg—Svend Foyn inventor—The Henriksen Works—Early Experiments with Modern Harpoon—Tonsberg Yacht Club—Tonsberg Whaling Captains—Successors of Svend Foyn—Development of Modern Whaling in South Atlantic—Weary Waiting—Trial Run of Engine—Provisioning—At the Rope Factory—Spinning our Whale Lines—Norwegian Hospitality—The St Ebba’s First Journey—Studying Charts—The Winch 27

Clear St Ebba from Quay Side—Anchor in Sheltered Fiord—Getting our Fishing Gear, Guns, etc., in order—Adjusting Compass—Final Provisioning—Ammunition—The Islands in the South Atlantic we hope to visit—A Fault in our Accounts—Harpoon Gun Drill 38

Leave South Norway for the Shetlands—Anchors foul—At Sea at Last—Down the Skagerak in Calm—Picking up Lights—Unpromising Weather—Half a Gale—Digging into same Hole—Full Gale—St Ebba a Dry Ship—Hove to—A Sick Crew—Our Cook—Engine will not start—Drifting across North Sea to Yorkshire Coast—Recollection of a Previous Whaling Voyage—All Hands to Air Pump 45

Drifting—Gale falling—Engines start—Set Sail—The Name St Ebba—We put aside our Plans for Arctic Whaling—Fair Isle Light—Sumburgh Light—Bressay and Lerwick—Quiet and Greyness of Lerwick—Shetland Anæmic 53

The Waiting Part of Whaling—Before “grassing a Fish”—Waiting in Japanese Seas—Poultry on a Whaler—Small Whale Yarn—Tied up in Lerwick—“Customs” on Board—“Tearing Tartan”—Entangled in Red Tape—Are we Pirates?—A Mass of Fish and Cormorants—Shetlands held in Pawn—A Burly Type of Old Whaler—About the Old Dundee Whaling Captains—The Registrar braves a Storm—Herring Catchers _versus_ Whalers—British Restrictions on Whaling Industry 57

Visit to R. C. Haldane at Lochend—Return to St Ebba—Captain Henriksen entertains the Board of Trade Inspector—Registers our Tonnage at Sixty-nine Tons—A Sunday Saturnalia of Shag Shooting—How to cook Shag (Cormorants)—The Quiet of Lochend—Haldane’s White House, Peat Fire and Illuminated Missals—Stories—Our Shetland Whaling Station 64

Extracts from Whaling Log and Sketch-Book—In Shetland—Sea-Trout in the Voe—The Whaler Haldane calls for the Writer—The Forty-Mile Limit—Seals and Birds—The Modern Whale Gun—Difficulty of shooting it—Various Whales—Their Names—Idyllic Sea—A Bad Day for Whaling—Hunting—Freedom of the Sea—Try to blow up Mackerel—Sabbath Calm—No Whales—Fascination of watching for a Blow—Hark back to Shetland—New Departure—A Bag of Wind—Across the Limit again—Fine Weather—Æsthetics on a Whaler—A Blast, Whales at last!—A Rough Chase—A Bull’s Eye at Forty Yards—Lost! 68

Better Luck—Spectacular Effect—Whales and Rainbow—On Chase—The Sea teems with Life—Our Chance comes—Heart-stopping Excitement—A Close Shave—In Tow—Seventy Tons in the Basket—Ten Whales in a Day—Vexatious Government Restriction—Uses of Whale Meat, Oil, and some Values in £ s. d. 80

Whaling has its seamy Side—A Whale Hunt—Colours of the Sea and Whales—In Tow—Whale is killed—Another Whale—“Thrilling Dangers” of Whaling and Exceptional Behaviour of Whales—Dangers of Whaling—Whale Steak—Whale Guano as Fertiliser—Lancing a Whale—Exquisite Colour of Whales—Pedigree of Whales—Rolling Home, Two Whales in Tow 85

Back to the St Ebba on West of Shetland—Fine Weather—No Competition—All Hands busy but no Whales—Our Last Night in Port—Out to the West—The Ramna Stacks as Targets for H.M.S.—A Sailing Ship once more 97

A Fine Weather Chantey “California”—Back to Lochend—Cormorant Hash—Up Anchor and leave the Shetlands—Cape Wrath—Lewis—Dunvegan—Picking up Lights—South to Tobermory—Our West Coast on a Dark Night—Ardnamurchan and Coll—Morar, the Most Beautiful Country in the World—Drimnin next, Glen Morven—Tobermory—Relatives and the Lady of Aros Castle 102

The British Fleet at Oban—A Union Jack made in Norway—St George _versus_ Imperial Idea—Violation of British Constitution—John Knox a Sunday Golfer—Wives at Sea—A Yarn—A Spy in Tobermory—The Tobermory Policeman 110

Harvest Moon—Across the Irish Sea—Belfast—Origin of our Name Scotland—Erin go Bragh—What brought us to Ulster Day and the Covenant—The Crew’s Adventures—Greenhorns in Ballymacarack Street—Down Channel for the Azores—Spun Yarn—Deep-sea Swell—Inspection of Rifles 115

N.E. Gale—“Oot o’ this intil a waur”—Into Deep Soundings—It Blows Hard—Black Night and Phosphorescent Wake—Oil on the Waters—Driving through—A Scrap of Sail—Attempt at Dolphin Spearing—A Whale in Phosphorescent Sea—An Idyllic Sunday—A Shoppie or Sale of Clothes from the Slop Chest—Æsthetic Music—Grieg on a Melodeon—M’Crimmon on Practice Chanter—Men who have dreamed—A Demonstration on flensing a Whale—Dolphin Steak and Onions—The Islands of the World 122

A New Land (to us)—St Michael of the Azores—Bens and Glens—Colour of the Island—Portuguese Pilot—Talk by Signs—About Sperm Whales—Ponta Delgada—Its Remarkable Beauty—Arcades—Colour Reflections—The Inner Harbour—Sea Fishing—Bonita—A Trammel Net—Hunting for Whales round the Island—Distress Signals—The Wreck 130

Notes about the Island—Compared with Madeira—Its Sights—The Streets of Delgada—A Café—Vino Tinto—Guitar Melody—Costumes—Chase Small Whales—Whales’ Ocean Routes—“The Ladies’ Gulf” 139

A Sudden Gale—Driving on to a Lee Shore—Bad Night—Engine Trouble—Killers attacking Whale—Recollections of the Antarctic—Oddments—An Eight-Foot Ray or Skate—A Jaunt on Shore—The Writer’s Excursion to “The Seven Cities”—Up the Hills—Wind up Affairs in Delgada—Up Anchor 146

Leave the Azores and San Miguel—Madeira in Prospect and Tunny Fishing—Whales at Last!—Sperm—A Chase—Prospects of Success—Long Chase—Fast!—A Straight Shot—A Bull Sperm—Cutting up a Sperm Whale’s Anatomy—Sharks—Creeling a Shark Single-handed—Spermaceti Oil—Blubber like Marble—Cooking Process—£. s. d. on the Horizon—Sharks and Pilot Fish—General Satisfaction—Whaling off Madeira 154

Madeira at Dawn from the Sea—Description—Funchal Flowers—Tunny Fishing—Early Morning Start—Splendid Colours of Native Boats and Crews—Small Fry for Bait—A Large Tunny caught by next Boat—Our Tunny and Pulley-haul Fight—Sailing Back 165

We leave the North Atlantic—Engine Troubles—Slow Voyage to Cape Town—New Engineer puts Diesel Engine right—Up the East Coast of Africa—The Seychelles Islands—Many Whales—We decide to make a Land Station—Apply to Government for Licence 176

Going to the Arctic—Objects in View—Our Little Company in the Fonix—Rough Weather—The First Ice—Draw for Watches—A Party lost in the Ice and a possible Cure for Scurvy—A Lunatic in the Ice—The Coming Spanish Arctic Expedition—Clay Pigeons—Fencing—We aim at Shannon Island—North-East Greenland—Ice Floes and Mist 179

Arctic Ice compared to Antarctic Ice—Colours of the Floes—First Blood—Habits of Arctic Seals compared with those of the Antarctic—Stopped in the Floes—Cobalt Ice Water—White Bears’ “Protective Colouring”?—Watching a Bear Hunt—Flea of _Ursus Maritimus_—Scoresby on the Danger of Bear-hunting 187

Six Bears in the Twenty-four Hours—A Bear’s Meal—C. A. Hamilton’s Veteran Bear—The Writer and a Bear stalk each other—Tips for Animal Painters—Sensation facing a Bear at Three in the Morning—Bear Flesh as Food—The colour of the Polar Regions—Method of pulling a live Bear on Board—A Bear eating a Seal 196

Waiting for Whales—Narwhals at last!—Our She-Cook—An Arctic Sanatorium—A Shark—Arctic Seals and Seals of the Antarctic—Our Bear’s Food—_L’éscrime_—Rifle, Pistol, Lasso—Lasso our Starboard Bear—Morning Watch in the Ice—Ivory Gulls, Fulmars, Skuas—Small Life—More Bears—A Bear Stalk before Breakfast—Fears about reaching Greenland—Bears on Board—Cachés in Franz Joseph Land—Bear Stories—“The Ends of our Garden” 204

A Walk on the Floe—Bear takes a Football—Lasso Practice—A Piece of Driftwood—The Bagpipes—Pushing West—A Cold Bath—Chasing a Bear and Cubs—Lost in Mist—Clever Mother Bear—Bear-hunting, a Man killed—Expectations of Walrus 219

A Narwhal and a Bear in the Bag—Missing Whales—Old Style of Whale Gun—Svend Foyn’s Cure for Toothache—Is Whaling an “Industry” or a “Speculation”?—Whales “Tail up”—Excitement of Whaling—Svend Foyn overboard—Floe Rats—Bears struggle for Freedom—Size and Strength of Bears—The Silence of the Arctic—Seals—Painting Ice Effects—Our Gifted Steward and our Vivandière on the Ice—A Bear on the Floe Edge 231

Arctic and Antarctic Floes compared—The Writer, the Bear and our “She-Cook”—Bear bids for Freedom—Rope-throwing—An Artist’s Points in a Little Seal Stalk—Man and his Works in Arctic and Antarctic—Whales’ Food 240

On Sitting up late—Harp Seals—Young Bears and Seniors—A Family Party—An Ice Grotto—A Hot Grog and Another Bear—A Tight Place 248

All Hands to secure the Bears—Two Bear Cubs captured—Invidious Comparisons between the Starboard and Port Bear—Another Bear for the Larder—Greenland’s Icy Mountains—A Blue Seal—“Starboard” makes more Trouble—A Spanish Yarn—Why the Harp Seal blows its Nose 256

Sports on the Floe—Notes on Protective Coloration 263

Bear Cubs, “Christabel” and “William the Silent”—Bottle-nose Whales—Bear _versus_ Bull—The Dons back the Bull!—Getting out of the Pack to Open Water—Meet Spitzbergen Ice 276

We get out of the Ice—Open Sea again—Spanish Airs—Killers—A Whaler’s Esperanto—Killers attacking a Rorqual—A Gleam of Sun—Then Rough Weather—Then Shelter in a Fiord—Beards off and Shore Togs—Our Engineer’s Children and the Bagpipes 281

Trömso again—Down the Coast—Selling our Bears—Bears Escape—Eat the Fish in Market-place—We put our Bears into New Cages—Notes amongst the Norwegian Islands—Recollections of Hunting—Fishing—Music—A Viking Air—Talk in the Smoking-room—Drawings of Whale’s Structure 287

Killers—Stomach of Whales—Grampuses and Whales—William and the Mandolin—The “Prophet”—Hard Waves—Back to Trömso 291

Teetotal Travellers—Fate of the Bears—Bears at large—Trondhjem—Folk Songs 300

Whalebone—Whales’ Food—Head of Sperm Whale—Value of Whale Oil 308

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Lancing a Whale _Frontispiece_

Piping in the Arctic 24

Modern Whale Gun and Harpoon 24

Stern View of the St Ebba 40

The St Ebba in the Fiord of the Vikings 40

Dead Seal on the Floe Edge 48

Mouth of a Finner Whale 72

Leaving our Two Whales at the Station 76

A Finner Whale being cut up 76

Two Whales being hauled on a Slip 88

Flensing Blubber off a Polar Bear’s Skin 102

Whale Under Side up 102

The St Ebba Motor Whaler in Oban 112

The Arcades at Ponta Delgada 136

Tunny on the Beach at Madeira 136

Killers attacking a Finner Whale 152

Cutting up a Cachalot Whale 156

Sperm Whale sounding 156

Trying to get rid of the Lasso 157

Cutting up Sperm Blubber 158

Hauling Sperm Whale’s Flipper and Blubber on Board 160

A Sleeping Bear and Cubs 168

Reloading a Gun with a Harpoon 192

Towing a big Bear’s Skin 192

The Last Cartridge 200

A Modern Steam Whaler 208

Starboard being hauled on Board 216

The End of the Trail 232

Towing Two Bear Cubs 264

The Captain’s Polar Bear Cub 264

Bears in the Water 272

Our Last Glimpse of the Ice 288

Our Engineer’s Daughter 296

Photo of Starboard 304

Species of Whales 310

MODERN WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING

It blows, it blows, at Balta Sound, a cold, strong wind, and yet we are in June. I think it always blows at this northern end of Shetland, but we on our little steam-whaler, the Haldane, are sheltered from the sea by the low green shore and the low peaty hills half shrouded in mist.

One after another herring steam-drifters come up the loch and collect round the hulk of a retired sailing-ship to sell their catch on board it by auction. The hull of the wooden ship is emerald-green and the small sombre-coloured steamers crowd around it. On their black funnels each shows its registered number in white between belts of vivid scarlet, blue or yellow.

Our Haldane lies at anchor somewhat aloof from these herring-boats, as becomes our dignity and position, for we are whalers!—in from deep-sea soundings—hunters of the mighty leviathan of the deep, the Balænoptera Sibbaldii, the Balænoptera Borealis, the Balænoptera musculus: commonly called Blue, all of which we call Finners, the largest mammals living or extinct. We are smaller than the herring-drifters. They are a hundred to a hundred and twenty feet long and we are only ninety-five, still we consider ourselves superior: are we not distinguished by a crow’s nest at our short foremast, and all the lines of our hull are classic—bow and stern somewhat after the style of the old Viking ships—meant for rapid evolutions, not merely for carrying capacity?

Our colour is light greenish khaki, and if red lead paint and rust show all over our sides, it is an honourable display of wounds from fights with sea and whales—better than herring scales!

We enjoy the enforced rest: all last night we towed a big whale alongside—seventy tons’ weight in a rising gale! The bumps and thumps and jerks and aroma were very tiresome.

We towed it ninety miles from the outer ocean to our station at Colla Firth, on Mr R. C. Haldane’s property of Lochend, in the early morning (it is light all night here), and left it floating at the buoy, went alongside the trestle pier, helped ourselves to more coal, and slipped away again before the station hands had time to rub their eyes or show a foot.

We came up through the islands, ran to the north of Shetland, passed Flugga Light, then turned tail like any common fishing-boat and ran back before a rising gale to this Balta Sound on the east for shelter.

Our little Haldane doesn’t care a straw for heavy weather, but we on board her can’t harpoon well or manage a whale in heavy seas, so “weathering it out” only means waste of coal.

Therefore we spend the morning in shelter, tramping our very narrow bridge (three steps and a spit, as the sailors say), and we talk and sometimes go into our tiny chart-room and draw; and Henriksen plays Grieg on the melodeon! Henriksen is a whaler by profession, an artist under the skin; and the writer is an artist by profession and harpooneer on this journey from choice and after long waiting.

As we draw and chat we notice with admiration Swedish line-boats like the Norwegian pilot-boat in type, sailing-boats with auxiliary motors, coming up the loch with their sails down, pit-put-a-put, dead in the wind’s eyes! We know they have been cod and ling fishing in the North Atlantic for several months, and are now full of fish packed in ice.

“Ah,” sighs Henriksen, “if I had a boat half the size of this Haldane, with a motor and crude oil like them, I’d make a good thing of whaling round the world,” and the artist agrees, for both have seen many whales in far-away seas. Henriksen knows the Japanese seas where there are Right whales—Australis with bone, and Sperm, or Cachalot, with spermaceti; and the writer has seen sperm in other warm seas in numbers, and big Finners or Rorquals in the Antarctic seas by the thousand. So we blow big smokes in the chart-room and draw plans in the sketch-book of a new type of whaler. And she will be a beauty!

The Haldane we are on is second to none of the modern kind of steam-whaler, and we have killed many whales with her up to seventy or eighty tons in weight. But she requires to be frequently fed with coal, and has to tow her catch ashore, possibly one or two whales, or even three at a time, for thirty, forty or even ninety miles to leave them to be cut up at the station.

We plan a vessel that shall be able to keep the sea for a long time without calling for fuel like these Swedish motor-boats, and that will hunt whales and seals round the world, and carry the oil and bone of its catch on board.

Can there be any drawing more fascinating than the designing of a new type of vessel for whaling round the world, for warm seas where the grass and barnacles will grow on her keel, and for high latitudes where cold seas and perhaps ice will polish her plates all clean again?

So after some more whaling and planning, round the Shetlands in fine weather and storm, the writer goes south with rough plans, and in a few days two good men and true have agreed to be directors of a little whaling company; and, the whaling season over, Henriksen goes home to Norway, and with a shipbuilder they draw out our plan in detail, for a new patent Diesel motor-whaler for hunting all kinds of whales and whaling-grounds round the world, a combination of the old style and new, with sails and motor to sail round the world if need be with never a call at any port for food or fuel.

All winter Henriksen the whaler and another Henriksen a shipbuilder toiled at the planning and building of the St Ebba, Henriksen driving every day from his farm five miles into Tonsberg with his sleigh behind slow Swartzen; and the writer pursued his calling in Edinburgh, receiving occasionally fascinating drawings or detail plans of the whaler in white line on blue paper, and then he joined Henriksen in summer in South Norway and both together they drove out and in to Tonsberg, behind slow Swartzen, day after day for weeks, till weeks ran into months, and it seemed as if our ship would never be done.

A coal strike in Britain was the first cause of delay, our Colville plates were kept back by that. Still, we had her launched in little more than a twelvemonth from the time we first planned her, which we thought after all was not half bad.

We called her the St Ebba—why, it is hard to say.

It would take volumes to describe the trouble there is in preparing a boat for such a purpose, especially a new type such as ours. Further on in this book the reader will be able to understand from the drawings and descriptions the different styles of whalers of the past and present.

In August I went to Tonsberg, the capital of the old Viking days, and over the wooden housetops saw the two bare pole masts of our ship and a little later saw her entire hull! How infinitely satisfactory, to see our dream of a year ago in Balta Sound realised in hard iron and pine on the slip. She is one hundred and ten feet over all, with twenty-two-foot beam—just a few feet longer than the Viking ship of the Norwegian princes that was found a year or two ago buried within a mile and a half of where our vessel is being built. Tonsberg was the Viking centre, now it is the centre of the modern whaling industry of the world.

Years ago we thought of whaling as connected with the hunting of whales in the Arctic regions, or of cachalot or sperm whaling in sub-tropical seas, carried on by sailing-vessels which had several small boats and large crews: in the eighteenth century 35,000 men and 700 vessels hunted the Greenland Right whale.