WHALERS OF YOUNG NEW ZEALAND

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 296, 10 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHALERS OF YOUNG NEW ZEALAND

Romance Of Our Oldest Industry

New Zealand’s oldest and most spectacular industry,. the hunting of whales for their oil, is still carried on in Cook Strait, as it has been for a hundred years. The first bay whaling depot was at Te Awaite in Tory Channel, and there the last is still in operation, in waters surrounded by a wealth of history and romance. In this article, contributed by the National Historical Society, is retold the story of whaling in this Dominion.

In 183 S there were something like five hundred white men resident in the country taking part in this adventurous but still profitable trade. They bad stations from Preservation Inlet and Otago Harbour to as far north as the New Plymouth Sugar Loaves. The Bay of Islands, though a great resort of ocean-going whaling captains, was not itself a shore base for whaling until later. Not the least active stations were those about Cook Strait —John Guard’s at Te Awaite, Bell’s at Mana Island, which he had stocked with sheep and cattle, and where there was even tobacco grown, and four or five more round about Kapiti Island. Kapiti was such a favourite base that, besides one station on the island itself, those diminutive specks, Tahoamaurea and Motungarara, as well as another neighbouring islet, Evans’s, had each their party of whalers. The Whaler’s Gear

The whalers prepared for the perils and chances of the case by repairing their boats, on which their safety as well as their livelihood depended. These boats were built for quick manoeuvring, double-sided to facilitate backing water when leviathan lashed the water with ponderous fury. Light and thin-skinned, they were easily damaged. Try-pots, those huge iron cauldrons for rendering down the whale’s blubber into oil, were set up somewhere near the water’s edge, often on sites specially excavated. The “spades,” razor-sharp knives on fourfoot handles, rather resembling modern slashers, which were used to cut up the blubber and dissect the whalebone, were whetted, the all-important harpoons ground and sharpened. A good supply of casks was needed to take the oil. An expert cooper sailed on every whaler and was to be found at every whaling station ashore. He made or repaired scores of barrels to cope with a catch on a generously optimistic scale. It would have courted bad luck as surely as sailing on Friday 13 not to have plenty of casks ready for the oil that was still sporting innocently in the ocean. Not least important, lines were spliced to provide a rope 200 fathoms long for each boat. Old-Time Methods It required courage of a high order to row up to a whale in a frail cockleshell and pierce its mountainous flesh with a puny harpoon. Even more, it required skill. The judgment of a good harpooner took care of his companions’ lives as well as the catching of whales. Whales, once firmly struck, went through all the antics of a hooked fish on a more dangerous scale. If they sounded, there was always a risk that the 200-fathom line might not be long enough. Then, unable to get rid of its assailant by plunging to the ocean depths, the harpooned whale would make for the horizon with all the speed its wounded condition allowed. Whalers, who had already rowed four or five miles out to harpoon their quarry, now had the disheartening prospect of an even longer row home. The whale that towed them, they would in turn have to tow all the way back to land when they had killed it.

The oarsmen now hauled up nearer to the whale, hand over hand, until, when it had wearied and weakened enough, it was safe to finish its agony with an adroit thrust of the unharbed steel lance. The death flurry was a terrible and hazardous climax to the most exciting form of hunting the world has ever known. It thrashed the water with its tail, and stained the sea with its blood. Cosmopolitan Game Whaling in 183 S on the New Zealand coast was truly international. American, French, English and Australian ships vied with each other in none too courteous competition for a fluctuating supply of right or sperm whales. Ships had the advantage over shore stations, because the quality of the oil from a whale “tried out” immediately after killing was superior to that from earcases towed for weary hours by small boats. A ship had its try-pots aboard, and the whole crew would turn to and keep at work until the carcase had been rendered down and safely casked, an operation that averages about 40 hours. The shore stations liad the advantages of smaller capital requirements, and a more comfortable life ashore. All ships, of course, had plentiful intercourse with the shore, welcoming tlie chance of fresh food after the long voyage out. If there was fierce competition in New Zealand’s first organised industry, there was also at times sincere co-operation. Overseas ships enlisted the services of white beachcomber act as go-betweens in tratiie with

Maoris. These men were cai.~>. “tonguers,” not because they' interpreted, but because they usually received the whale's tongue as part of their fee. Ships often “mated” together, pooling their resources in pursuit of the elusive whales. Hempieman, farnouss Peraki whaler, actually mated with French ships. fa CookStrait some enterprising Maoris developed a curious branch of the industry: they harpooned, but did not kill, whales and then sold their catehess to the Cloudy Bay whalers for as much as 120. The Clash of Race Maoris were constantly employed by the whalers. Naturally (he contact of two races with such different cultures was not without friction. The marvellous goods of I he white man were a source of continuous wonder, delight and cupidity to the Maoris. But. these eminently reasonable men soon realised that it was easier Io acquire them by working for the rough, but straightforward whaling skippers than by raiding their settlements. Even in those days

the tribes desired foreign credits to purchase armaments. Work for the white man as sailor, blubber cutter, or supplier of food, could be paid in muskets. The white man for his part, though he regarded the natives as treacherous, found it paid him to keep on good terms with his Maori neighbours and behaved himself, submitting even to demands for tribute or rent of sites occupied. Moreover, he frefrequently became the son-in-law of his hosts.

Whaling is still carried on from Tory Channel, from a spot very near to John Guard’s Te Awaite, where he took up his abode in 1827. But the Tory Channel whalers in their fleet little 35-foot launches attack the migratory humpbacks. They use a modified form of the Sven Foyn harpoon gun, a weapon that shoots a veritable small shell into their quarry. The oldtime whalers with only a hand-flung harpoon met the whale on more even terms, tire swift humpbacks and tinners caught by modern whalemen would have been beyond their powers. The sperm and right whales were their habitual prey. The sperm whale, which to-day has retired to the Indian Ocean, was ocean-going. Ships, which, would lower their boats, if necessary, in the middle of the Pacific, caught these more valuable and dangerous creatures. The sperm whale alone has a mouth that can bite. Shore stations usually had to be content with the less profitable right whale, a species of coastal habit. But both species were threatened with extinction, and with them the whaling industry when, in 1886, Sven Foyn’s harpoon gun allowed swifter and larger species to be taken. The Economic Aspect Coincident with the dwindling number of whales, whale oil lost economic importance, thanks largely to the invention of gas, electricity and mineral oil fuels, like kerosene. Whale oil is again valuable to-day because modern science, which first displaced it, has now revived its value, discovering fresh uses for it in the manufacture of soap, margarine and in other industrial processes. The value of whale oil always affected the quality of the personnel engaged at an old-time whaling station. The whaler did not receive wages but a “lay,” or share, in the voyage or season’s work. An unlucky voyage always meant numerous desertions to the shore or to other more skilful ships. Whalers, in spite of the carefree manners that men so far from Europe tended to fall into, were in the halcyon days of high oil prices men of a fine stamp—not the blackguards and roysterers of popular imagination. Though missionary Bumby and strait-laced Captain Chetwode, of 11.M.5. Pelorus, expressed disapproval of the morals of the Cloudy Bay whalers of 1838-9, another missionary, the Rev. Henry Williams, perhaps more a man of the world, visited them about the same time and gave a far more favourable account. Indeed, the worst conduct was always to be expected of crews of ships from Europe or America, who might commit acts of meanness or bad faith, secure in the knowledge that not they, but the next white visitors would suffer for them. The fate of the French Jean Bart, whose crew was massacred at the Chatham Islands in 1838, showed how unwise it was to commit atrocities against the Maoris and still remain within their reach.

The whalers settled in New Zealand did the country a real service, whatever their individual character might have been. They advertised its amenities to the outside world and proved that the Maoris could, if properly approached, be good neighbours. By this means they hastened settlement in New Zealand, themselves blazing a trail not without hardship and danger. Link With Whaling Days The very interesting find of try-pots at Cape Kidnappers some little time ago calls to mind the whaling operations carried on in those parts, as far as can be ascertained, somewhere about 1839. Extensive excavations were necessary before the two Hastings residents who made the discovery uncovered tlie melting-down or try-pots—four in allthree in a fairly good state of preservation, and the fourth, a square receptable, almost completely corroded. The throe round pots were about three feet deep and about throe feet across—and tlie capacity of these is (approximately) 125 gallons. In one of the pots a heavy iron rake was found with a handle about three feet long. The pots which were resting on stone foundations, had stone tunnels or flues leading from each into a larger stone chimney built up at the back. Tlie centre pots had spouts which apparently were used for the overflowing of oil into the end pots.—D.M.H. (Nelson).

“in the early months of this year the Germans kept all Europe in a.state of alarm lest they were going to rush into Czechoslovakia as they rushed info Austria, and present other nations with Ihe accomplished fact. They must not be surprised if other nations think them dangerous, for that is precisely the appearance which, if we may judge from I heir own acts and words, they desire to present. I believe that with firm and skilful handling tlie peace can and will bo kept. But I hope the Government will bear in mind that what is needed is not merely a patch-up of this particular question, but an allround appeasement which will save us from having to live in the atmosphere of fear and suspicion which Ims blight e<l the life of nation.' in recent times." —Mr. J. A. Spender In the "Yorkshire Observer,”- ,