The crews are quick to seize the opportunity. With the lance-men ready in the bow, the boats sweep in, one on either side. “Steady with the lance.” “Now!” Eight-foot steel blades drive deep for the heart behind the pectoral fins.
A shiver, a hissing spout of water and blood, a wallow and roll of the huge, wire-tangled carcass, flashes of red and white foam in the sunlight, and the black heave of a twenty-foot fin that for one dread instant, scimitar-shaped, a falling wall of bone and sinew, hangs over the boat and its occupants. The boat’s crew back out like lightning, just in time. Down crashes the mighty flail, missing its blow by a barefoot. There is a roar and clap of many thunders, and jetting spurts of spray leap high into the blue.
The boats, backed clear, still hang to the lines, the crews watching events and waiting the end. It may be that the dying whale will “sound” again, or “race” in a final effort.
But, no. The lances have gone home. A few more wallows’ of despair, the great tail-flukes thrash the water with lessening force, and presently the huge body, inert, lifeless, lies quietly on the surface. Hawsers are made fast to the dead whale, and while the boats return to their stations to watch the remaining nets it is towed by the launch to the flensing jetty ashore.[[1]]
[1]. D. W. O. Fagan in the Wide World Magazine, pp. 423–432.
Since the beginning of the last century the sub-antarctic islands known as the Shetlands, South Orkneys, Falklands, South Georgia and Kerguelen have proved to be the greatest whaling grounds of modern times, and are today yielding nearly $35,000,000 per year—just one-half of the total world revenue derived from the shore whaling industry. On South Georgia alone, eight companies with headquarters in Norway, England, Scotland, and Argentina are in operation, and all the other islands have one or more stations or “floating factories.”
In South America there are several stations on the coast of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and operations are also being carried on at Spitzbergen, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Hebrides, Greenland, and the Galapagos Islands. Shore whaling is, therefore, a world industry in the truest sense of the word.
A modern shore whaling station at Kyuquot, Vancouver Island, B. C. The flensing slip, carcass platform and wharf are shown in the foreground. In the background is the manager’s dwelling.
When it was discovered that in certain localities the whales were being rapidly killed off and the vessels had to hunt so far from the stations as to make the trip unprofitable, the “floating factory” was devised. This is a large steamship of five or six thousand tons which is fitted with huge boiling vats and can be moved about from place to place as the whales themselves travel. Usually two or three steamers operate from one floating factory for formerly when only the blubber was used and the carcass was turned adrift, one ship could not supply enough whales to make the work profitable. These factories are used most extensively on the South Atlantic grounds.