CHAPTER IV 



UP TO CAPE YORK 



ON Sunday, July 19, we sent a boat ashore at 

 Point Amour Light with telegrams back 

 home — the last. I wondered what my first 

 despatch would be the following year. 



At Cape St. Charles we dropped anchor in front 

 of the whaling station. Two whiles had been cap- 

 tured there the day before, and I immediately bought 

 one of them as food for the dogs. This meat was 

 stowed on the quarter-deck of the Roosevelt. There 

 are several of these "whale factories" on the Labrador 

 coast. They send out a fast steel steamer, with a har- 

 poon gun at the bow. When a whale is sighted they 

 give chase, and when near enough discharge into the 

 monster a harpoon with an explosive bomb attached. 

 The explosion kills him. Then he is lashed alongside, 

 towed into the station, hauled out on the timberways, 

 and there cut up, every part of the enormous carcass 

 being utilized for some commercial purpose. 



We stopped again at Hawks Harbor, where the 

 Erik, our auxiliary supply steamer, was awaiting us 

 with some twenty-five tons of whale meat on board; 

 and an hour or two later, a beautiful white yacht 

 followed us in. I recognized her as Harkness's Wakiva 

 of the New York Yacht Club. Twice during the 

 winter she had lain close to the Roosevelt in New York, 



34 



