Chapter XIX: Problems and Practice

Now that we have been able to see the intimate connection between those early Antarctic explorers and the culmination of a large and flourishing southern whaling industry, we are in a better position to appreciate the situation in further detail.

It is with this subject, as it certainly was with the discovery, hundreds of years ago, of the route to India via the Cape of Good Hope; in regard to all Arctic and Antarctic exploration; and, indeed, concerning some of the greatest wonders in modern applied science. The progress was gradual rather than sudden: it was the steady advance, rather than the flying visit. A scientist makes certain facts clear, and from these data united with others there is eventually rendered practicable wireless telephony. So it was in regard to whaling. Without all those previous experiences learned in Arctic whaling, and without that geographical knowledge and those observations of whales obtained by various Antarctic expeditions, the sudden rise of the modern industry in the Falkland Dependencies would not have been justified.

Roald Amundsen, the first man ever to reach the South Pole, remarked that “it is not too much to say of Captain Larsen that of all those who have visited the Antarctic regions in the search of whales, he has unquestionably brought home the best and most abundant scientific results.” But Larsen was indebted to a long line of shipbuilders, to many generations of Dutch, British, American, Norwegian and other harpooners. Without all those years of Arctic whaling knowledge, how would it have been possible to set going on right principles this industry in the British Dependencies? To take a small point: that little squadron of _Balæna_ and her three sisters, which brought home the news that the southern seas were abounding in finners, had in 1892 only just returned from working the Arctic seas in the late summer of that year. They were merely typical whalers of small size, built and sheathed according to accumulated knowledge, tested by years of hard experience. The result was that they were able to leave in that same September for the Antarctic. The whole history of northern whaling is bound up with that of the south, just as all Polar exploration and observation are inseparably connected with the evolution of this important industry.

If it is the whaler whose ship-model has repeatedly been used for transporting the scientist, then the latter has come back with more systematized information by which to aid the adventurous merchant. I am stressing this point of mutual assistance, since too often we are tempted to be influenced only by the final achievement and forget all the weary steps which had preceded it. “The recent Antarctic Expeditions,” wrote Dr. Jean Charcot of the _Pourquois Pas?_ expedition of 1908-10, speaking in reference to this southern commercial whaling activity, “from de Gerlache’s down to that of the _Français_, have certainly done much for this revival of industry in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions, and I personally claim to have done my small part, though I should have liked to see my fellow-countrymen, severely tested as they have often been in the cod-fisheries, attempting to take advantage of it.”

And, again, Charcot wrote: “It was three years ago that the chase of the balænoptera began in our exploration zone; and in the South Shetlands since our visit, one Chilian and two Norwegian companies have set up at Deception, while another has taken as its headquarters Admiralty Bay in George I Land. As far as these whalers are concerned, it has been a pleasure to me to note how useful the _Français_ Expedition has been to them in supplementing the discoveries of the _Belgica_; for we were able, of ourselves, to supply them with the only existing chart of the north-west coast of the Palmer Archipelago, and another of the Bismarck estuary, to guide them to a good anchorage at Port Lockroy and a shelter at Wandel Island, to say nothing of our notes on the numbers and species of balænoptera, on the movements of the ice-floes, on the winds. etc.”

For it was during his first expedition of 1903-5 in the _Français_ that Dr. Charcot had carried out extensive exploration on the west coast of Graham Land, and discovered that good harbour of Port Lockroy in Wiencke Island, and moderate shelter at Port Charcot in Booth-Wandel Island. The second of the scientist’s expeditions was that of 1908-10 in the _Pourquois Pas?_ which covered a wider range and brought about important discoveries. Thus, for example, we cannot yet tell how valuable commercially it may be that he measured and accurately placed, during this second voyage, Adelaide Island; that he proved Alexander Land to be an island, and that Charcot Land, right as far south as lat. 70°, was discovered. But of the greatest immediate value was the hydrographic work which he carried out from the South Shetlands and among the isles at the western side of Graham Land. How valuable such efforts are industrially may be at once understood when we realize that recently this hydrographic information was lacking to the whaling ships. Thus in the year 1918 the Norwegian s.s. _Solstreif_ a vessel of 3,409 registered tons, employed as a whaling factory in the South Shetlands and by Graham Land, got ashore on a rock near Cape Melville, and another steamer named the _Ornen_ was nearly on these selfsame rocks. The s.s. _Telefon_, ten years previously, got on the rocks by the south-west entrance to Admiralty Bay, and became a total wreck.

On the other hand there was found by whalers in 1918, at the west side of Pendulum Cove, a document conveniently left behind by Dr. Charcot, headed “Notice to Navigators,” containing such useful information as in the following extracts: “I think I ought to warn all navigators who may go to Wandel with the intention of staying at Port Charcot that a ship is far from being in safety there during the north-east winds, which are by far the most prevalent and the most violent in this region.... A chain stretched across the entrance of the bay and securely fastened at both ends, may protect to a certain extent the ship from the ice blocks, but hawsers, even of steel wire, are soon cut.”

Such information as this begins that body of Sailing Directions which, by the experience of some hundreds of years and many voyagings, have been compiled for other parts of the world, enabling shipping of all sorts to proceed on their lawful occasions. Charcot and others risked their ships, and the lives of their crews, to get that essential information which will go on being added to till some day it is complete. There is a passage in his _Voyage of the “Why Not?”_ which illustrates how those early whalers of 1909, whom he frequently met down south, used to rely on his help.

“Lastly,” he writes on December 18th, “the whale men are very anxious to know whether there cannot be found in the bays of Joinville Island some good anchorages, at which they could carry on their work. It comes within the scope of our duties to discover this for ourselves and to try to bring the information back to them.” And in another place he remarks: “The whalers ... are upset, for hunting is bad this season.... A naturalist would find interesting microscopic study in the subject of whale-food--the infinitely small denizens of the water--which must count for much in explaining the routes the whales follow; and science once again would hereby render eminent services to commerce.”

The present hydrographical position is that there still remains a very large amount of work to be done before the surveys of the whaling areas are anything like complete and safe for navigation. And where the working season is annually not more than five or six months, it follows that some years must elapse before satisfactory charts will be available. But this matter, so far as the Falklands Dependencies are concerned, is thoroughly in hand. For, even when we were in the midst of a great war, and during that most critical of all years, 1917, when German submarines had reduced our Mercantile Marine to such seriously low figures, the British Government was commencing an inquiry into the preservation of the whaling industry concerned with these Dependencies. The result was that a special interdepartmental committee was set going, which recommended, _inter alia_, that the food of whales should be carefully investigated as well as the migration of the sperm whale to southern waters. Investigations were also to be made in regard to the breeding-grounds, and it was pointed out that a complete hydrographical survey was necessary both for navigation generally, and for the local interests of the whaling industry. It was as a result of the committee’s findings that Scott’s old ship the _Discovery_--herself built on the lines of the old Dundee whalers--was fitted out at Portsmouth in the early summer of 1925 and despatched to the seas of which we have been speaking, there to act as a research vessel.

But in the meantime we have to bear in remembrance that it was owing to those British pioneers, mentioned elsewhere, that these localities are ours. Already in the season of 1908-9, when Charcot was down there and three whaling companies were working on Deception Island with floating steamers as factories, and the smaller specially built steamers going out to catch the whales, there were two hundred Norwegian inhabitants of that island. The season lasts from the end of November to the end of February, when the companies separate; some to hunt off the Chilian coast, others in the Magellan Straits, others in the waters of the Cape of Good Hope. In regard to the South-West African whaling, where the humpback, fin and blue whales are captured annually, Saldanha Bay is largely used, as well as Durban, for eastern whaling. In the year 1912 only 131 whales were caught off that part of Africa, but they have since been captured in much greater numbers; and even in 1916 the figures were considerably over eight hundred.

The numbers of right whales and sperm whales caught in the waters of the Dependencies are so few compared with the thousands of the blue, fin and humpback, that we can neglect them. The humpback may be in danger of extermination, but it is of little commercial value, and the other two are plentiful. The practical method by which the men can recognize the different kinds at a distance is as follows. These three belong to the rorqual class, the humpback being known by the protuberance on his back and by the fact that he spouts very low. The fin whale is of medium value, has a very large dorsal fin, and spouts very high with a single, straight jet. The blue whale, on the other hand, which is more valuable than the other two, has a moderate-sized dorsal fin and spouts with a double jet ending in a plume.

For the sake of clarity and continuity we have concentrated on one particular branch of development. Let us now go back a little way. The whole possibility of this modern Dependencies’ whaling has been based on those new methods inaugurated in the eighteen-sixties by that Norwegian expert Svend Foyn, who had been impressed, whilst voyaging to the Arctic for seals, by the large numbers of finners. Why not hunt this species? After three years he got over the difficulties and introduced his special explosive harpoon, and by doing away with the old method of using the boat, eliminated the risk to crews. It was now the year 1865, the time when the gallant old sailing ship in the clippers and others was making her last flutter: for steam was beginning to conquer navigation.

Svend Foyn, substituting the steamer for the sailing ship’s rowed boat, made it possible for the harpoon-gun to be brought quite close to the finner. (It is true that way back in 1731 a portable harpoon-gun had been invented, but this was found very dangerous, although others followed.) Moreover, since a dead finner sinks and its weight is much greater than the buoyancy of the rowed whaleboat, it was no good thinking of hunting this species unless the size of the craft were increased. Thus, in a sentence, the conditions demanded that a steamer with a harpoon-gun in the bows be employed. With many improvements this method is that of modern whaling. When the animal is hit, the two shanks of the harpoon open out and explode a small bomb. The body of the dead whale is then hauled back by means of the ship’s steam windlass, inflated to prevent its sinking, and then towed to the floating factory or shore, the steam whaler, or “catcher” as the modern term is, sometimes being seen with as many as half a dozen dead cetaceans.

As a result of his new methods, Svend Foyn of Tonsberg died a very wealthy man, and the acknowledged expert of all the Norwegian whalers. But it was only through his plucky perseverance and originality that the problem of killing the supposedly invulnerable finner had been made practicable. What was more, it was thus through him that a new industry was to arise in Norway. Now, then, let us watch the sequence of events. In June 1893 those four Dundee whalers, after their unsuccessful voyage, had arrived back in Dundee. There happened to be living a Mr. H. H. Bull, who was also inspired by the Antarctic whaling proposition, but had failed to interest Australian capitalists in the scheme. Bull therefore left Melbourne, travelled to Norway and got in touch with Foyn, then over eighty years old. The latter listened and approved, and even placed at Bull’s disposal a whaler, built at Drammen as far back as the year 1871. This vessel was similar to the Dundee _Balæna_, and now, changing her name from _Cap Nor_ to _Antarctic_, under the command of Captain L. Kristensen, with Mr. Bull on board, set off in September 1893, reached Melbourne the following January, left it in the following September, got within the Antarctic Circle, sighted Cape Adare for the first time it had been seen since Ross’s voyage, visited Possession Island, but after being as far south as lat. 74°, it was decided to return. For commercially this voyage had been a failure, and not a “right” whale had been seen.

And so the intimate relationship between whaling and discovery, between the genuine whaling ships and the exploration vessels built on the lines of whalers, went on. The whaling expert was indebted to the explorer, and the explorer to the whaler. Two more instances of these in regard to personnel may here be cited. Let us mention, for instance, the name of C. B. Borchgrevink, a Norwegian by birth, but a British colonial land-surveyor by experience. So keen was he to go with Kristensen and Bull that he signed on as ordinary seaman in the _Antarctic_. After his return in 1895, Borchgrevink unsuccessfully tried to get up a trading expedition to Victoria Land, but three years later persuaded Sir George Newnes to fit out the _Pollux_, another Norwegian whaler similar to _Balæna_, yet with new and more powerful engines. The name _Pollux_ was changed to _Southern Cross_; there went as captain Bernhard Jensen, who had been Borchgrevink’s shipmate as second mate of that whaler _Antarctic_, Jensen having for many years been in command of an Arctic whaler. The _Southern Cross_ left the Thames in August of 1898, and proceeded via Hobart to the Antarctic; but the value which accrued from this expedition was interesting rather from a pioneering point of view than scientifically.

So also Dr. W. S. Bruce, who had originally gone out in _Balæna_, took part in the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition of 1894-7 to the Arctic, and then led the Scottish National Antarctic expedition of 1902-4. It is one of the most remarkable facts about men who have served in the Arctic and Antarctic that they are to be found longing to repeat the experience. Bruce had yearned to go out again to the Weddell Sea, and now another Norwegian whaler, the _Hekla_, was bought, rebuilt and named the _Scotia_. As captain of her there went Thomas Robertson of Dundee, who had been captain of the _Active_--one of those four Dundee whalers which had met Captain Larsen on that other expedition in the south.

The _Scotia_ was a three-masted barque, with auxiliary steam, of about 400 tons, measuring 140 ft. long and drawing about 15 ft. Her best speed under steam was eight knots. She was immensely strong, with 9 ft. of solid timber at the stem, and even amidships her thinnest part was never less than 2 ft. thick. She was further protected by green-heart sheathing, this wood being chosen for its ability to resist the grinding by the ice. She started out from the Clyde in November 1902, called at the Falklands, and in February sighted the South Orkneys. The furthest south was attained in lat. 74° 1′ S., long. 22° W., and the ship got back to the Clyde in May 1904. The achievements of Dr. Bruce’s expedition included many important deep-sea soundings and dredgings, investigations as to both temperature and salinity in the Weddell Sea, the discovery of Coats Land for 150 miles; the wintering at the South Orkneys, important hydrographical survey work, and the establishment of a meteorological station on Laurie Island. Many whales were seen just before entering the Antarctic Circle; and between Buenos Ayres and the Falklands also sperm whales. In the comparatively high latitude of 56° 55′ S., and long. 10° W., many humpbacked whales were sighted “but never any of the bowhead or right whale, which carries the gold-mine in its mouth.” Many whales were seen by this ship also off the South Shetlands.

Finally, it may be mentioned that Amundsen, on that expedition which culminated in discovering the South Pole, reported that he saw from the _Fram_ both finners and blue whales. Shackleton, whose penultimate expedition left England in 1914, just as the Great War was beginning, and was wrecked by the ice, escaped to Elephant Island (one of the South Shetlands), and then undertook that wonderful boat journey to South Georgia. During this ill-fated expedition there were sighted both finners and blue whales, but it is to be noted that two sperm whales were seen in lat. 69° 59′ S., long. 17° 36′ W. Very few whales were found in the Falklands area, but eight bottlenose whales were seen in lat. 67° 47′ S., long. 52° 18′ W.

To sum up, then, the present position of whaling has shifted from the Arctic to the Antarctic in regard to the chief sphere of activity. The spirit which has actuated both explorers and fishers has been of necessity one of determination to endure cold and discomforts, together with a tremendous sympathy with seafaring. Great physical strength, the ability to bear severe Polar cold and being cramped up in comparatively small ships; that quiet, unemotional determination of the northerner to succeed in spite of all obstacles: it is these qualities which have always been possessed especially by the Scotsman and the Scandinavian. Thus it is that in the history of whaling and Antarctic voyagings we find such North European names as Ross, Weddell, Bruce, Foyn, Larsen, Kristensen, Borchgrevink, Nordenskjold and others.

In the times when the Greenland and Spitsbergen whaling industry was at its height, Britain possessed a valuable and wonderful national asset in that numerous and highly skilled floating population of hardy crews. In their prime, after they had become sufficiently expert, no nation had more able whaling men or better whaling ships. Then the pride of the occupation passed to the United States, and now it belongs almost exclusively to the Norwegians. Britain has never possessed many whaling crews accustomed to the use of the explosive harpoon. It is to men of only a certain primitive hardy temperament that this occupation of spending a large part of the year in the cold and bitter weather can possibly appeal. A few Shetlanders from Scotland have tried it, but even they do not long remain attracted.

At first sight it seems utterly illogical that whilst the Dependencies’ whaling stations are in British territory, most of the personnel of the ships and the capital is Norwegian. There are thirteen Norse companies to three British and one Argentine. Before the war most of the whaling gear was manufactured in Norway, though since then some of it, such as the whaling lines and the foregoers--that strong, pliable portion of the line immediately attached to the harpoon--have been successfully made in Great Britain. The crews of the British transports are British, but the harpooners, the men on the shore stations and in floating factories, the crews and gunners in the whale-catchers, are practically all Norwegians. Had that Dundee squadron of 1892-3, when it went south, been equipped with modern guns and gear for dealing with finners instead of the old-fashioned apparatus for the bowhead whales which they never saw, it is possible that all this sudden wealth of South Georgia and vicinity might have come to Great Britain. The rise of the industry has been amazing and it is still becoming more profitable, and there can surely be few occupations which have in twenty years so handsomely rewarded investors.

On the other hand it cannot be ignored that the question of temperament and difference in national character is likely to prevent the British seaman, accustomed to serve all his life in tramps and liners, from banishing himself to endure cold in a desolate corner of the globe. Still, if we have lost the whaling industry, we have in the steam-trawler and steam-drifter fleets both men and ships far superior to those of any generation. It is only from these that recruits for a new British whaling industry are likely to be obtained. But I cannot conceive that under present circumstances the men are likely to be lured so far away when even the trawlers which fish in Icelandish waters can see their homes and families frequently. And yet a fleet of modern steam whale-catchers, with their trained gunners, is certainly something of which to be proud nationally, and likely to be of great use at the outbreak of war.

A gunner is paid well in these whale-catchers. Leaving Norway at the beginning of September and arriving back home in the following June, he earns the equivalent of about £700, if based on South Georgia, but wages are higher at South Shetlands owing to the longer duration of light and therefore longer working hours. But it must not be forgotten that in these catchers the work continues day and night, without any fixed hours, and with very little time off. The gunner is naturally a man of great skill and long training, worth his wages and bonus. But the seamen and engineers must also be willing and picked men of special training; for next to the importance of harpooning a whale is the ability to sight him. The look-out man in the crow’s-nest must be able both to see and to discern: so, too, the steersman must be no ordinary quartermaster but specially accomplished to act promptly in accordance with the gunner’s instructions. As to the engineer, he, too, requires some training, especially in the need of fuel economy: for these whale-catchers burn about six tons of coal a day, and the cost of coal in South Georgia reaches as much as £14 a ton.

There is also this other difference to be remembered. In the olden days there was a big whaling community at Hull, Peterhead, Dundee and other ports. The ships belonged there, the crews’ homes were there also. Nowadays these are fishing communities, and it would take a long time to build up a whaling community in Britain, from which men would go to the Dependencies every year in the whale-catchers. But in Norway it is different, for there are whaling communities in Tonsberg, Sandefjord and Larvik: and all those Norwegian whaling companies operating in the Falklands Dependencies belong either to these three ports or to Christiania or Hangesund. There can be no possible doubt that the British seaman of the fisherman type would be the best kind of whaler for this class of work: and the readiness with which British fishermen, who had never even fired a shot-gun previously, became during the war thoroughly good gunners, is proof enough that if they could hit submarines at long range they could certainly strike whales at close range.

But there are all sorts of difficulties: of temperament--yes: of working with foreigners: of working under aliens; problems, also, in regard to sailors’ and firemen’s unions. But where the pay is so attractive and the season from leaving home to getting back is not more than ten months, it is conceivable that some day British crews in British whale-catchers under British gunners may be hunting the whale with as much enthusiasm and skill as in those days when the fleets used to go from the Thames and east-coast ports. We have the men and we have the ships. There remain only the will and the determination.