APPENDIX III 385 



The shark fishery is an unusual industry and, to 

 a stranger in the country, most interesting. The shark 

 caught is the sluggish sleeper-shark, of which the liver 

 yields a fine oil much used in illumination. On favor- 

 able banks along the entire coast of Greenland the in- 

 dustry is well established, and thousands of pounds of 

 shark-liver oil are obtained annually. The fishery be- 

 gins in April and continues until the ice goes out; even 

 afterward large numbers may be caught from a boat. 



The sharks are caught on large hooks suspended 

 through the ice on lines of strong wrapping-twine long 

 enough to reach almost to the bottom. The line seems 

 ridiculously light to catch these animals, some of which 

 measure fifteen or twenty feet in length and weigh over 

 a thousand pounds. The sharks are so sluggish, how- 

 ever, that they offer no resistance whatever to being 

 hauled up and pulled out on the ice. To prevent the 

 sharks biting the line through and escaping, the hook 

 is attached by a swivel directly to a thin iron bar, and 

 this bar to a light chain about ten feet long. The twine 

 is double for about fifty feet of its lower end, so that it 

 will not so easily chafe in two against submerged rocks 

 or ledges. 



The hook is baited with seal entrails, seal heads, or 

 codfish. The shark, though sluggish, is voracious, and 

 gulps down the whole bait, hook, and often part of the 

 bar. Not uncommonly it happens that when a small 

 shark has been caught on the hook, a larger one comes 

 along and swallows the smaller already impaled. When 

 the sharks are cut up to take out the liver, all kinds of 

 things are found in their stomachs — pieces of seal, of 

 walrus, strange fish, and even parts of human beings. 



At South Upernavik the shark fishery is not very 



