Old Weather Forum

She is brilliant at her job. I can't trace it just now but the Beluga log had a list of whales caught by the whalers over-wintering 1897-8 and Narwhal looked good

Well you never know when you'll trip over something interesting.
Inspired by Chris's wonderful Dockside gallery painting for today:
I thought to see if any of our logs from around 1874 got anywhere near Cape Bathurst or even to the MacKenzie River Delta just to the west of the Cape. I had a quick look in the Helen Snow, 17 Oct. 1871-19 Aug. 1872 (OWW Phase 1) and discovered the writing of Captain Bodfish (for example, Beluga 1897-9, Mary D Hume) along with his telltale cross hatches for interesting matters in the log, on this occasion it was the ship being abandoned.

I'm sure this will, likely, only interest me, but I had to note it here. It's intriguing. Perhaps Bodfish wrote, or intended to write, a history of the Arctic whalers.

Captain Bodfish DID write a book! It's called "Chasing the Bowhead" and was published by Harvard University Press! This is the book description:

"Everyone who craves a thrilling tale of adventure will be completely satisfied with this account of whaling days beyond the Arctic Circle. Captain Bodfish was the first whaling-master to spend a winter in the Arctic in order to lengthen the season. His book is filled with anecdotes, all told with dry Yankee humor, about the rivalry of various crews, living conditions in winter camps, the Eskimos, and the kind of hunting taht was at the same time good sport and potential wealth. He has rescued from obliviscence a period of human activity that will probably never be repeated. After intriguing the summer visitors as Martha's Vineyard for many years, his stories are here set down with illustrations and selected from his own large store of photographs."

April - you have 'Librarian' printed in your DNA I reckon

As a very, very special treat I bought a signed copy of Chasing the Bowhead. I feel slightly weak at the knees knowing that the book had been in Bodfish's own hands.
When I get five minutes I'll write an index for it. It's a great read, as you say. I dig around in it quite a lot.

I was wondering if he'd set out to write a more general story. I was genuinely surprised to see his handwriting in the Helen Snow. He started off his career in the brand new Belvedere a long time later. Imagine the fun we could have spending months in the Grimshaw-Gudewicz Reading Room and Archives at the NBWM going through his papers, let alone the other great captains (I reckon the Tilton family would be fascinating too)?
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/collectio ... ts/mss-17/
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/collectio ... collection


Here's a bit of social history that he left in the back of the Newport logbook in 1896:
https://archive.org/details/logbookofne ... 2/mode/1up
The Rules and regulations of the Dry Throat Association
The list of signatories, and their ships, is pretty much the N. Pacific Whaling Fleet

A few pages later he records a meeting of the DTAs

We've never worked a log book for the Whaler Jeanette although she's often reported, in the 1890s certainly, in the logs of those whalers prowling the Canadian Coast.
I just stumbled on a picture of her from 1914. It is from the New Bedford Whaling Museum photograph collections.

We have worked on the MD Hume (way back in OWW Phase 1). Like the Jeanette she's mentioned many times by the 1890s whalers in the Beaufort Sea.
This picture is also from the Bodfish photograph collection at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

What a dinky whaler...just 96 feet (29 m) long by 22 feet (6.7 m) wide


Unlike so many of the other ships she survived her Arctic years...but what a shame now...


From her Wikipaedia article: "She is still registered on the National Register of Historic Places, and her wreck can still be seen in Gold Beach (Oregon)."

Wow, lots of good info. I can't believe you got a signed copy! That's great.

Now what I REALLY wish I could find is more info on the Herschel Island Baseball League.

That would be such fun. I can't recall where I saw it, though it was recently so I might be able to remember, that thousands of dollars were passed around during those games in betting slips. Fortunes were won and lost apparently. There's a really funny picture in the Bodfish collection...was this from whaling, or baseball?


(The caption is: Counting the profits, Ounalaska )

I also noticed:
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/collectio ... ts/mss-17/
There's a section in the page: SUBJECT HEADINGS and in the list it says 'Herschel Island Yukon' I bet that would be gripping reading

Hardball on Herschel Island
Whaling crews in the 1890s played an extreme version of baseball on the winter sea ice around Herschel Island, off the coast of the Yukon. The local Inuit were their biggest—and rowdiest—fans.

That's an ace piece, Randi - well found, and thank you for it. Paints a richer picture than I get in those log books. It's how life really was. Rough. I hate to use an old fashioned phrase but 'live hard, die hard' seems to apply here.

Also - this article reminded me of which logbook recorded barometer readings - it was the Newport in a book we are not (yet) transcribing. Thank you again! Barometer readings are as rare as hen's teeth amongst the whalers' books.

https://alaska-native-news.com/category ... n-history/

That's an interesting one Randi

When you read the logs there's only the most rare comment about eating whales, and that's usually by the Inuit who happily find a purchaser for the bone (or at least some of it). Still rare, but not quite so, is eating seal.
Bodfish recorded a couple of times when the Ikgillick went out to the edge of the ice to get a whale. But there's no sign of it being deemed a new source of food for the fashionable of San Francisco!

It unseasonably warm here in the UK this New Year's night - and so it was on Herschel Island as 1894 became 1895. Here's the report from the William Baylies, log keeper Master John MacInnis

When you stop to think of the lack of modern day assistance, the journey made by Jarvis was epic. No GPS, no maps, no telegraph even. The assistance of native peoples and those Westerners who had settled along the route was all that could be had. Having a picture of Jarvis makes the situation feel much more modern than it was in those remote reaches of the world.