l62 THE WHALE HUNTERS 



living creatures. I have killed cow blue whales over a 

 hundred feet long, though sad to say, not so many in 

 recent years. They feed on the small creatures we call 

 "krill" and you can make your own guess as to how 

 many pints of these shrimps it must take to build up a 

 body weighing a hundred and twenty tons. Why, even 

 their babies are twenty-four feet long at birth. The 

 rorqual's baleen is shorter than the right whale's, but that 

 did not matter to Foyn. He knew that it was their oil 

 that the world needed, for such things as soaps and the 

 treating of textiles. 



*My grandfather, Erik Olafsen, sailed in Foyn's steam 

 whalers from the land station at Varangerfiord on the 

 Finmark coast. They used to bring the whales to the 

 shore for flensing just as they used to do in Jonathan's 

 days — only then it was called "cutting in". They did so 

 well up there in the Arctic that other countries tried to 

 copy them and Foyn was forced to protect the industry he 

 had created by obtaining from the King the right to 

 exclude all other nations for a period often years. At the 

 end of that time the other countries sent their whale 

 catchers swarming into the Arctic with the new lethal 

 harpoon guns. When they were too far from land stations 

 they brought their whales to a mother ship equipped with 

 boiling vats. In a few seasons the rorquals in the Arctic 

 were practically exterminated and it was the sad story of 

 the Greenland whale all over again. 



'So Foyn made up his mind to find new grounds and 

 in 1893 sent a ship to the Antarctic on the other side of 

 the globe. She returned with reports that the sea there 

 was teeming with whales. Shortly afterwards Foyn died 

 in the happy knowledge that the future of the industry was 

 still assured. 



'By now the four sons of Grandpa and Grandma 

 Olafsen had grown up and followed their father into the 

 whaKng industry. They sailed from the harbours of 



