Whaling

Last night, our neighbor who is a son of a whaling captain invited me to go with them whaling. I was excited to go, because outsiders only get to go if they're invited. I would get to see the natives whale. They do it more or less the same way that they have for hundreds of years.

The plan was to leave at the crack of dawn (about 5 or 6 in the morning), and I could come back when someone went back to get lunch for the crew. It didn't end up working that way, though. Between members of the crew who hadn't gotten to sleep in time the night before and others who couldn't find a babysitter, we didn't end up leaving until 12:30 or 1:00.

We rode out onto the ice to their spot. It was about 1-2 miles out. There was a channel in the ice about a mile wide where crews were whaling. I got my camera out to take pictures, but of course it wouldn't work with the cold.

I figured out that the way they hunt whale is they wait for the whales to come close to the edge of the ice, then as the whale passes by their spot, they smoothly launch their boat and approach the whale from behind, then they harpoon it with a harpoon attached to a buoy. This way, they can trace it when it goes deep. They then get it with a harpoon that has an explosive in it.

It didn't take too long for a whale to come by close enough for the crew to give chase. I stood looking on as they got ready to launch their boat, when one of the members pointed to a spot on the boat and told me to get there. It's not very common for outsiders to be allowed to help out, so I was pretty honored. Over the course of the day, we chased after about 5 whales. Some of them were within about 20 yards of us.

Another whaling crew was able to get a buoy attached to a whale, but they lost track of it under the ice.

There was a period of about 30-45 minutes when no whales came close enough, but on the other side of the channel there was a group of whales playing and splashing around. It was pretty cool to see. I probably ended up seeing at least 12 whales, all of them bowhead whale.

I'm going to be really sore tomorrow!