THE WHALE FISHERY. 97 



in the list. These were fitted at a large cost for the express purpose of pushing farther west 

 through Hudson Strait into the bay where it was anticipated abundance of whales could be 

 found, and where no American vessel had ever been. " Without accurate charts, in waters totally 

 unknown, among ice and strong currents, in short days and long nights, in fogs and gales of wind, 

 with large compass variations, these adventurous navigators pushed their way, and reached the 

 longitude of 90, spent a winter there, when the thermometer fell to CO below zero, obtained 

 cargoes worth about $60,000, and returned to the United Staterm 1861."* 



Si-uce 1860 this fishery has been pursued with varying success; the total number of voyages 

 fitted since that date has been one hundred and eight, and the largest number sent out in any 

 one year was nineteen vessels in 1864. About 3 per cent, of the entire catch of whale oil and 

 5 per cent, of the whalebone taken by the American fleet from 1870 to 1880 was by the Hudson 

 Bay vessels. Most of the whaling has been carried on in Cumberland Inlet and Hudson Bay, no 

 Americans having pushed on as far north as do the Scotch steam whalers that cruise up as far 

 as the seventy-fourth parallel. The first steam-whaling vessel owned in the United States was 

 the steam-bark Pioneer, sent to Davis Strait in 1866. She sailed April 28, and arrived home 

 November 14, with 340 barrels of oil and 5,300 pounds of bone. She sailed again in 1867, and 

 was lost on the voyage, being sunk by the ice. The best voyage ever made by the Davis Strait 

 fleet was by the bark Pioneer that sailed from New London June 4, 1864, and after passing the 

 season in Hudson Bay returned, September 18, 1865, with 1,391 barrels of oil and 22,650 pounds 

 of boue, valued at $150,000. 



The vessels in this northern fleet must be double planked around the bow and along the sides 

 near the water line as a protection against the ice. This planking will last for several years. No 

 copper or metal is used on the bottom, and but few sails are needed as the vessel is frozen in the 

 ice much of the time. The natives are of great assistance to the whalers, helping them in taking 

 whales and also in procuring fresh fish and meat. On the Scotch steamers it is the general 

 custom to carry the blubber home to be tried out, but American whalers here, as in other parts of 

 the world, prefer to try it out on board the vessels. The Scotchmen cruise about these waters 

 during the .summer months, and then return home, while many of the American vessels winter in 

 the ice. 



Most of the whales taken in these northern waters are of the bowhead or polar species which 

 is peculiarly an ice- whale and is the same as taken by the Pacific- Arctic fleet. Whales have been 

 taken in the vicinity of Point Barrow, with harpoons in them bearing the marks of vessels that 

 had been pursuing the fishery in the vicinity of Davis Strait; hence it seems certain that there 

 exists a passage from one ocean to the other. An instance of this kind is given by the Honolulu 

 Commercial Advertiser, in December, 1870. It is an account of a harpoon which was found in a 

 whale captured by the ship Cornelius Howland, of New Bedford, then cruising in the North 

 Pacific Ocean. It is the custom among whalemen to have each iron stamped with initials desig- 

 nating the ship to which it belongs. This is done to prevent dispute in case it is necessary to 

 waif the whale, or in case boats from two different ships lay claim to one which has been killed. 

 While off Point Barrow the Cornelius Howland took a large polar whale, in the blubber of which 

 was embedded the head of a harpoon marked " A. Or.," the wound made by it having healed over. 

 This was presumed to have belonged to the bark Ansel Gibbs, also of New Bedford. But she 

 was known to have been pursuing the fishery in Cumberland Inlet and its vicinity for some ten 

 or eleven years previously. The obvious inference was that this whale must have found his way 



* Mr. R. H. Chapell, of New London, iD a letter to Capt. C. F. Hall, quoted in Narrative of the Second Arctic 

 Expedition. 



SEC. v, VOL. IT 7 



