[7] THE NORWEGIAN FISHERIES IN 1883. SG5 



fishing apparatus, and besides these 1 boat for general use. Sometimes 

 the mate also acts as first harpooner. One man is hired to take the 

 mate's place while he is out with the fishing boats. Each fishing boat 

 has a crew of 4 men. While they are out 2 men remain on board, and 

 sometimes 2 men and 1 boy. These 5 vessels have brought back from 

 the coast of Nova Zembia (occasionally they were also engaged in the 

 seal fisheries on tbe ice, as the seal about that time of the year come from 

 the White Sea), 160 walrus, 2,678 seals of different sizes,* and 3 polar 

 bears, valued at 51,684 crowns [$13,851.31]. Some of these vessels were 

 very successful in the seal fisheries, but these expeditious to the coast 

 of Nova Zembia have, as a general rule, not been very profitable, espec- 

 ially if — as has been the case during two successive years — they could not 

 enter the Sea of Kara. Last year seal-skins brought a good price, so 

 that the fisheries paid; the oil, however, was oifered at too high afigure. 



For the Spitzbergeu fisheries Hammerfest equipped 7 vessels, with a 

 total tonnage of 209 and a total crew of 70 men, viz., 6 vessels with a 

 crew of 10 or 11 men, and 1 with 7 men, having only one fishing 

 boat. These 7 vessels caught and brought home 230 walrus, 1,108 seals 

 (mostly large), 17 polar bears, 45 reindeer, and 130 kilograms of eider- 

 down, valued at 59,458 crowns [$16,034.74]. 



The fishing area is not very large. If many more vessels were to 

 engage in these fisheries, the animals would go farther north into the 

 icy regions, and the entire fisheries would be ruined in a few years. 



At the banks in the Polar Sea, principally near the Bear Islands and 

 the south coast of Spitzbergeu, shark fisheries were carried on exclu- 

 sively. Fifteen vessels were engaged in these fisheries, with a total 

 tonnage of 415; 13 had a crew of 6 or 7 men each ; and 2, only 5 men. 

 They brought home 2,067 tons of shark-liver, with an estimated value 

 of 51,675 crowns [$13,848.90]. Two small vessels, with a total tonnage 

 of 35, were engaged in the cod fisheries near the coast of Spitzbergen,t 

 but only caught a few hundred cod. 



Whiting fisheries were attempted from Hammerfest, we believe, in 

 •1869 or 1870, by John Berger and a firm in Bergen (probably Mohr & 

 Son), who fitted out a large steamer, with an extraordinarily large and 

 expensive seine; but the enterprise proved an entire failure. In 1872 

 an expedition for catching whiting was attempted with a sailing vessel, 

 but the results were exceedingly small, and as other attempts made 

 during the following years were equally unsuccessful, no further expe- 

 ditions were sent out. The expeditions sent out from Tromsoe have 

 been more successful in catching whiting near Spitzbergeu ; but expe- 

 rience has shown that these expeditions do not pay, as good whiting 

 fisheries are i)urely accidental and very rare. 



* As a general rule, 1 large seal is supposed to yield 1| tons of fat or 1 ton of oil, 

 and 7 to 10 small seals about 1 ton of fat. 



tin all about 700 men from Norway have participated in the va^rious fisheries in 

 the Polar Sea heyond the limits of Norwegian waters. 



