FISHERIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
81 
is a small part of what he must submit to. A contrary current may hold him in the 
pack while ships about him make sail and head for the whaling grounds. Or while 
he is wearing and tacking about, waiting an opportunity to continue his course, he 
is harassed by the feeling that perhaps other ships have got through the ice some- 
where else and found whales. Possibly he may be within easy sailing of a passage 
through the ice — as it was afterward learned we seventeen ships were — but not kuow 
it. He is always in danger of having his ship stove, and must be prepared at any 
moment, day or night, to figbt clear of ice or flee from a threatened pack or approaching 
floe. These conditions come nearer the proper ones for spoiling a good temperament 
than any human being ought to be tempted with. Even the patient Job of old would 
have been sorely tried had he been an Arctic whaleman. To hang week after week 
on the verge of getting somewhere is far more trying to the patience than one could 
imagine who has not experienced it. 
An experience of Captain Cogan, of the Hunter, in 1886, is typical of what exertion 
a whaleman will make to prosecute and complete his voyage. In going through the 
Gulf of Anadir he broke a piece out of the Hunter’s cutwater, but did not deem it 
necessary to stop and repair it. When off St. Lawrence Island he was caught in a 
whirlpool, had the rudderhead nearly twisted off, and two of the pintles holding the 
rudder broken. It was necessary to make this damage good, when he started on agaiu. 
When off Icy Cape he struck bottom ice) knocking in six timbers 6 feet from the 
keel forward of the fore chains. This caused a serious leak, but by running all 
pumps and bailing he got at the break and stopped two-thirds of the flow. Turning 
about he went into Kotzebue Sound, behind Chamisso Island. The wind has a rake 
of 10 or 12 miles there, yet it was the last retreat at hand. Nearly everything in 
the ship was landed on shore. The spars were then unshipped and made into a 
raft, which was firmly anchored at both ends with the two anchors and then weighted 
down and steadied with casks of water. A strong southeasterly gale came up, mak- 
ing it necessary to undo all this work. But when all was again quiet the raft was 
rebuilt, and with this as a wharf the ship was hove down so that the keel could be 
reached, and the leak thoroughly repaired. Before things were stowed down again, 
another southeaster came on, but it was too late to do any damage. Up to th& time 
of this mishap the Hunter had not caught a whale, but less than three months after- 
ward she went into port with eleven whales. (“Arctic Alaska and Siberia,” by Her- 
bert L. Aldrich.) 
The season in the Okhotsk usually begins about the last of May to the 
first of July, and continues to the latter part of October. The whalers 
enter the sea as soon as the ice permits ; occasionally they have con- 
tinued there until near the close of November, thoughin imminent dan- 
ger from the new ice. Vessels have on rare occasions “wintered in 
the ice, in order to take advantage of the late and early seasons.” The 
whaling season on the “ Japan ground” is commonly from May to 
November, or essentially the same as in more northern regions. In late 
years, however, the whale fishery from San Francisco has been prose- 
cuted chiefly in the Arctic Ocean and the Okhotsk Sea. 
It is common for vessels to “ fit away” and sail on voyages in thel 
late autumn or early winter. The chief object is to have their crews on 
board and well trained before the Arctic season begins. They cruise 
in the Pacific and occasionally make profitable captures, though, as ai 
rule, few whales are taken in winter. “Leaving port the whaler cruisesi 
for a while in the tropics under easy sail hunting for sperm whales, 
winding up for a holiday at the Sandwich Islands, or some other island 
port, before the ship’s head is turned northward.” 
H. Mis. 274 6 
