Whale River

“ With infinite labor we hauled the Explorer above the high-tide level, out of reach of the ice that would soon pile in a massive barricade of huge blocks upon the shore, that she might be safe until recovered the following spring. Then we packed in the boat’s prow our tent and all paraphernalia that was not absolutely necessary for the sustenance of life, made each man a pack of his blankets, food and necessaries, and began our perilous foot march toward Whale River. ”

“ Tuesday, the 16th.—Decamped at five, A.M.; the snow very deep in the woods. Fell on Whale River at ten, A.M. The face of the country [pg 40] presents scarcely any variety; from Erlandson's Lake to this river it is generally well wooded, but afterwards becomes extremely barren, nothing to be seen on both sides of the river but bare rocks. ”

“ So great a river could not come from an island, no, not if it were twice as large as Hispaniola! Such a river comes downward with force hundreds of leagues and gathers children to itself as it comes. It is not an island yonder; it is a great main!”
We called the gulf where we were the Gulf of the Whale. Trinidad stood on the one hand, the unknown continent on the other. After rest in milky water, we set sail to cross the width of the Whale, and found glass-green and shaken water, but never so piled and dangerous as at the Mouth of the Serpent. ”

“ He called the stream Ecola , or Whale Creek . These names did not persist and since pioneer days the stream has been called Elk Creek . The village near its mouth at the north end of Cannon Beach was first called Elk Creek , then Ecola , and in 1925 its official postal name is Cannon Beach . See under ECOLA and CANNON BEACH for addi tional information . R. G. Thwaites on page 324 of volume III of his Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Ex pedition , is confused about Whale Creek and mistakes it for the Nehalem River , the most important stream to the
south . ”

“ Eighty miles through the Northern Ocean itself from the Mackenzie mouth brings our whale-boat grating upon the shingle. "As far as we go!" This is essentially the Island of Whales, the farthest north industrial centre in America, the world's last and most lucrative whaling-ground. It is well to take our bearings. We are in latitude 69-1/2° N. and just about 139° west of Greenwich; we are a full thousand miles nearer our Pole than the Tierra del Fuegan in South America is to his. And it blows. A nor'easter on Herschel never dies in debt to a sou'wester. ”

“ Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; ”

“ The Gulf Stream fertilises the earth for the benefit of man, and it likewise carries food to regions frequented by the mighty whales. Frequently large shoals of sea-nettles, on which the black whale feeds, have been met with, borne onward towards its haunts in the north. The whale itself, it is believed, could not exist in the warm waters of the stream. Fish, also, are not generally found in it; and those which inhabit it are of a very inferior flavour. ”

“ The Hole did not spout at every wave, but took breathing space like a living thing. Now he understood why the opening of the cave was called the Whale's Mouth. Now he understood why the people said "she spouts" when the Puffing Hole flung its hundreds of tons of water a hundred feet into the air. It was a daring fancy which saw in the strange freak of nature a colossal representation of the spouting of the whale. The Black Rock was the head, the cave the jaws, the shaft in the rock the blow-hole of a whale multiplied a thousand times. ”

“ Now, the Western Islands is the great place of resort for whales: and at first there is something curious to us in the idea that the Gulf of Mexico is the harvest-field, and the Gulf Stream the gleaner which collects the fruitage planted there, and conveys it thousands of miles off to the hungry whale at sea. But how perfectly in unison is it with the kind and providential care of that great and good Being which feeds the young ravens when they cry, and caters for the sparrow....
“The inhabitants of the ocean are as much the creatures of climate as are those of the dry land ”

“ We know what is meant when a person speaks of sunrise and sunset, although it be true, astronomically, that the sum neither rises nor sets. For all the purposes of common life, the whale is called a fish, though natural history tells us that he belongs to another order of animals. If these parties asked for the Ca nada de los Capitancillos, meaning to include all the land up to the Azul Mountains, and the Governor understood that he was granting all the land to these mountains, it matters not whether, properly, it was all valley land, or all mountain land. ”

“ Indeed, the existence of these tides, with the immense flow and drift which annually take place from the polar seas into the Atlantic, suggests many conjectures concerning the condition of these unexplored regions. Whale-men have always been puzzled as to the place of breeding for the right whale. It is a cold-water animal, and, following up this train of thought, the question is prompted, Is not the nursery for the great whale in this polar sea, which has been so set about and hemmed in with a hedge of ice that man may not trespass there? ”

“ I can number every equinoctial storm, in which the sea has overwhelmed the street, flooded the cellars of the village, and hissed upon our kitchen hearth. I give the history of the great whale that was landed on Whale Beach, and whose jaws, being now my gateway, will last for ages after my coffin shall have passed beneath them. Thence it is an easy digression to the halibut, scarcely smaller than the whale, which ran out six cod-lines, and hauled my dory to the mouth of Boston Harbor, before I could touch him with the gaff. ”

“ A "sucker" who happened to be disporting round the British Isles when Alfred the Great was burning those historic cakes and prefiguring with candles the eight-hour day may still be chasing whale-brit round an Arctic iceberg. The whale mates, we are told, once and for keeps. Jogging along from one ocean end to another with the same wife for a thousand years without turning fluke to look at an affinity! Shades of Chicago and Pittsburg, hide your wings! Whales follow their annual migration as regularly as do moose and caribou on land, the seal and salmon in the Pacific. ”

“ The beaches everywhere are profusely littered with drift-logs from the Yukon, twenty to forty feet in length, thickly strewn. They are pushed high above tides by the ice-floes in winter. What the result would be of failure to gain that abundant supply of fuel, now so easy of attainment, upon the natives of this entire region, is not difficult to determine. As they live to-day they are steadily, rapidly diminishing in number. The whalemen have substantially exterminated their chief sources of life—the whale and the walrus. ”

“ A much larger number of right whales is killed by the natives about the shores of Bering Sea and along the polar shores than is supposed. Almost every village gets from one to five every season. Then comes a joyful time. The bone belongs to the boat's crew that strikes the whale, the carcass to all the village. ”

“ For many miles nothing can be seen but the arching waves dashing themselves upon the sand, as if furious that their course should be checked. The whale has almost entirely deserted its old haunt, but the sea still furnishes many an exciting, and also many a sad, episode in the otherwise uneventful lives of the townsmen. ”

“ Even though it was the very middle of the night when a ship’s whistle sounded, long before the whale had been dropped at the wharf, paper lanterns, flashing like fireflies, would begin to shine and disappear among the thatched-roofed cottages and the crowd of villagers gathering at the end of the wharf. Half-naked men, child-faced geishas, and little youngsters carrying sleeping babies as large as themselves strapped to their backs, formed a curious, picturesque, ever changing group. ”

“ Through an opening in the reef we enter—the boatmen pulling hard against the outward rush of the tide, which runs here like a cataract at times—and glide easily across the mile or so of shallow water that lies between us and the shore. One or two splendid whale-boats pass us, manned by native crews, and the other passengers tell me that these boats are all made by the Aitutakians themselves, who are excellent builders.
There is a very decent little wharf to land on, and of course, the usual excited, decorated crowd to receive us, and follow us about. ”

“ And only man is vile.”
Along the southern shore stretches a long line of coral reef, and this, extending some distance into the sea, renders it unsafe for a ship to approach too near the land. A little beyond this reef stands a rock known as Nepean Island, only relieved from utter barrenness by one or two pine trees. On this rock the whale birds congregate in great numbers to deposit their eggs, which are eagerly sought for by the people for food. ”

“ The establishment of the Southern Whale Fishery Company was fixed at the south side of Erebus Cove. This cove is bounded on the south side by a small peninsula projecting in an E.N.E. direction, [9] and connected by a narrow isthmus. This beach allows of easy landing, and the land, being level, is suitable for the purposes of wharfage, whaling stores, &c.
From this part the head of the harbour extends nearly two miles farther in a W.S.W. direction to its head, into which a fine and copious stream of fresh water falls. ”

“ On the floor we lit a great fire of brushwood and moss, which threw out a dense smoke, curling in volumes round the fish, and they in a few days seemed perfectly cured.
About a month after the appearance of the herrings, we were favored by a visit from other shoals of fish. Jack espied them first, and called to us that a lot of young whales were off the coast. We ran down and discovered the bay apparently swarming with great sturgeon, salmon, and trout, all making for the mouth of Jackal River, that they might ascend it and deposit their spawn among the stones. ”

“ Formerly whaling was one of the favorite hunts of the Central Eskimo and in some places it is even continued to this day. Whales are either pursued in kayaks or in skin boats. If the kayak is used, they are harpooned in the same way as the walrus, a very large float (avautapāq ́) being attached to the harpoon head. The whale is pursued by a great number of kayaks and every boatman endeavors to drive his harpoon into the animal, which, by the loss of blood and the resistance of the niutang and floats, is tired out and killed with lances. ”

“ On this island, which has a cold and stormy summer and nine months of rigorous winter, several whaling stations have been established. For years great numbers of whale carcasses have drifted ashore each season and, half rotting, half refrigerated, have furnished a never-failing food supply for brown rats that have landed from the ships. With such abundant food they are reported to have increased until they now exist there literally in millions. They make their nests in the tussocks of grass and peat and swarm along well-marked trails they have made on the mountain sides. ”

“ The Makahs were perhaps the worst of these, whose reservation is on the extreme northwest corner of the peninsula. They are brave fellows, and dare to chase whales in their sea-canoes. When a whale is seen spouting the fact is reported to a medicine-man, who allots to each canoe to be engaged in the chase the requisite number of skilled oarsmen and a harpoon-thrower. ”

“ Whale Sound is a large and deep inlet, ending in a valley between mountains. On the south side, a vessel may anchor in one place, at the west side of Last Harbour; but there, though the harbour appears large, the anchorage is small, and close to the shore. We pulled and sailed along the south shore, landing occasionally to take bearings, until we reached Choiseul Bay, and in a cove, at its west side, we passed the night. ”

“ My immediate aim is to attain a low rocky island which we see close into the shore, about a mile ahead of us.
“Midnight.—We did reach it, and just in time. At 11.30 P.M., our first whale-line was made fast to the rocks Ten minutes later, the breeze freshened, and so directly in our teeth that we could not have gained our mooring-ground. It is blowing a gale now, and the ice driving to the northward before it; but we can rely upon our hawsers. All behind us is now solid pack. ”

“ The Waikato here is a beautiful broad river, flowing swiftly between low banks 120 feet apart. It suddenly runs into a narrow rocky channel only thirty feet wide. Imagine this enormous volume of water compressed and fighting through the deep trough; the fierce struggle at the entrance, the long green slide of the waters in their gradual descent, the angry, turbulent rapids where the channel becomes still narrower, and, at the last, the sudden shoot over of the mighty waters, between two large rocks. ”