Old Weather Forum

Each log writer is likely to have a peculiar writing style and spelling system. In the most exaggerated cases the spelling of one word may vary even in the entry for one day.
If you find oddities please do post them here to help other viewers working with this project.

Help with images
If you want to query/show some text please supply the page reference (the reference changes as you view the middle of a page), and an image of the text would also be helpful. Help for manipulating/posting images can be found in Guide to posting links and images. If you have any problems with imaging please ask for help below.

Remember - Always TYPE WHAT YOU SEE, just as they wrote it. If you are unsure of a word, you can post a question to this page and ask for help. If just one letter of a word is not readable you can insert a tilde mark ~ in place of a single letter.

Mer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 4:39 pm Anyone know what the hash mark in the margin might mean? Next to Sunday Sept 5th and Sunday Sept 12th.

https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... 8/mode/1up

For a full reply see the Beluga's shipyard: viewtopic.php?p=5301#p5301

The 2nd line in the Sept 10th entry appears to reference a ship arriving at 0400 that I don't see referenced on the forum or when googling, and I'm not sure how to interpret the last word or 2. Is it mentioning the ship leaving again?

Also the Sept 11th entry seems to say "mate search away northwest bring boat back" but that makes no sense. Is anyone else able to interpret the log entry?
https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... 8/mode/1up

Sept 25th, the last sentence seems to be describing the ice but not sure if the first part is 1 word or 2. Any suggestions?
https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... u/page/30/

Maybe: mate went away to the northwest to bring the boat back.

Maybe that ship arrived for the duration. 4 dur. I don't do whaling ships, but maybe one of the other whalers will recognize the ship's name.

Some young ice.


I have found a trick that's very helpful for hard to read images:

• I use the image viewer irfanView. You can get it here: https://www.irfanview.info/files/iview456_setup.exe
• You also should get their plugins, too: https://www.fosshub.com/IrfanView.html/ ... _setup.exe
• For an image of the whaling logs, I magnify them to a good size and copy the image
• I paste that image into irfanView (Ctrl-V).
• Then I convert the image to greyscale (Ctrl-G), and change the gamma and contrast to make the writing stand out more on the page (Shift-G).

Thanks for the suggestions, Michael!

I did check the pages on imaging but it doesn't look like Irfan is MacOS compatible. I tried Apple's native photo editing, which is rather robust, but I couldn't find a way to take a snapshot of a whole page of the log to work with. I was spending more time trying to work with the photo editing than actually working on the transcribing. Maybe a good solution is to make a note of the faded sections and use the photo editing on just the few tricky words.

I also tried to find some help on pasting a snapshot, rather than a link, in this text box. The best I can determine I would have to save the image to somewhere public and then 'upload' it, so to speak, or know my way around html and graphic languages well enough to code it in. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you ever so much Michael! Irfanview is very useful indeed for bringing up these texts! Most especially Cpt Bodfish and his pencilled notes

Mer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:04 pm The 2nd line in the Sept 10th entry appears to reference a ship arriving at 0400 that I don't see referenced on the forum or when googling, and I'm not sure how to interpret the last word or 2. Is it mentioning the ship leaving again?

Ockpullock arrived 4 deer. Capt went hunt(~)

Ockpullock will appear a few times in this log whilst they are in that area of the Parry Peninsula. He's an Inuit hunter. Looks like the Captain then went out hunting. The last word is indistinct at its end, but I'm sure it is to do with 'hunt' written in haste.
You can record this in the Remarks column if you wish but it is not essential.

Mer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:04 pm Also the Sept 11th entry seems to say "mate search away northwest bring boat back" but that makes no sense. Is anyone else able to interpret the log entry?
https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... 8/mode/1up

The text runs:
light wind west mate went away
with natives too bring boat back

I can't find a recent reference to the natives being loaned a boat, but this action does happen at times, other ships have also reported this action. The Inuit go out fishing for seals. The whaling boats are much more robust than the Inuit skin boats so they can fish even when there are small bergy bits hanging around. It all puts food on the table.
I would record this in the Remarks column because it could signal local sea ice. We can't state sea ice possibilities in the transcription - it's up to the scientists to consider that detail, but they will have the details there to muse over

Mer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:04 pm Sept 25th, the last sentence seems to be describing the ice but not sure if the first part is 1 word or 2. Any suggestions?
https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... u/page/30/

Those last few words are 'some young ice'.
You need to record this as 'Sea Ice - Yes' and Sea ice words: 'some young;' (remember to use the semicolon )

(Thanks for the modified image Michael )

Hope this all helps, Mer

Yes, to display an image, it has to be online. So you either find the image online, as the log page below, or you upload it yourself

With Windows and Firefox: From https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... 0/mode/2up, if I right click on the left page and then select Copy Image Location I get https://ia800907.us.archive.org/BookRea ... 4&rotate=0

Pasting that into the tags (button with image of sun and mountain) gives me:

---

However, with something like this it helps to have a link to the log book so that you can look at other pages. Context is a big help!

Thanks Randi! This is brilliant!
Once this image is in a post you can simply increase the magnification of your webpage to see what the details are. Nice and simple

You can right click and copy the logbook page image and paste it into something like 'powerpoint' (Microsoft's programme for making presentation slides) where you will probably be able to adjust the image. It may not be as good as Irfanview, but it should work, and be quick too.

I'm sorry that ifranView isn't available for Macs. I'm not a Mac user, so I can't help you; sorry.

Thank goodness Joan is on deck to help with the writing.

Thanks Joan, Michael, and Randi! Can't wait to try this all out!

Mer wrote: ↑Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:09 am Thanks Joan, Michael, and Randi! Can't wait to try this all out!

Hi Mer,
Sorry not to reply until now. In ship's terms I'm having my galley re-fitted so having busy times!

Let me know if you need any more help fathoming out the handwriting/images. Bar re-writing history and setting up calligraphy classes for the captains we will just have to pull out all the tricks that we have to hand

Horton River (near Cape Bathurst and the 'smokey/smoking hills').
13th July 1899
https://archive.org/details/logboookofb ... 3/mode/1up
The writing is not clear and is slightly obscured by the word 'fog' in the line above: