Inuit Contact and Colonization Readings

Inuit Contact and Colonization Readings Canada’s Eastern Arctic:Its history, resources, population and administration, pp. 81- 83 SEA MAMMALS The sea mammals of this region are divided into two distinct grounds (1), the Cetaceans (Whales and Porpoises), which although air-breathing mammals are adapted to a strictly aquatic life; and (2) the Pinnipeds (Seals and Walruses), which derive their food from the water, and spend the greater part of their life in the water although they spend much time out of water resting upon ice floes or upon rocks or sandy beaches. The Pinnipeds as a whole are fairly well known, although the ranges of some of the rarer species are not fully known. As the sea mammals are essentially the same from the northern to southern limits of the region covered in this paper, they will all be treated in one section. CETACEA (WHALES AND PORPOISES) A few species of Cetaceans are fairly well known on account of being the largest of living animals, and having been the object of the important commercial whale fishery for hundreds of years, as well as an important element in the food and fuel supply of certain of the Eskimo tribes from remote antiquity. Lists of the Cetaceans found on any coast are difficult to compile for various reasons, including the amount of sea room allowed, or distance allowed from the shores in question. We find deplorable scarcity of authentic records except for the more important varieties. From the nature of their habits, sight records of the rarer species are uncertain, and the size of the animals prevents most specimens which are captured or stranded from being preserved or studied by competent observers. In more temperate regions, where there are no ice barriers, it may be safe to say that a certain species has been found in adjacent seas and an extralimital species may wander to the shores at any time. Peculiar ice conditions prevail east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, where the pack-ice opens early on the Greenland side and sets against the lands on the Canadian side until later in the summer. This may allow early migrating whales to approach the south and west Greenland shores in early summer and fail to reach the Canadian side at all. It is therefore unsafe to assume that a species recorded from south Greenland is entitled to a place in a Canadian list. The Dominion Government expedition to Hudson bay and the Arctic islands, on 1 Canada’s Eastern Arctic:Its history, resources, population and administration,pp. 81- 83 *In this paper the modern nomenclature is used, followed by a citation of the original description of each species, with the “Type Locality” or place where the specimen was obtained to form the basis of the description. The confusion in names has been largely due to insufficient material and many individual variations of one species due to age, etc., have been described as new species. Inuit Contact and Colonization Readings board the C.G.S. Neptune, 1903-1904, was charged with collecting data on the whale fishery, and a good account was given by A. P. Low, Officer in Charge (1906). The whaling industry in these waters was then on a decline, and shortly after that data was practically finished.* 1. Balaena mysticetus Linnaeus. BOWHEAD or GREENLAND WHALE 1758 -Balaena mysticetus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., Ed. 10, Vol. I, p. 75. (Type locality- Greenland seas) The pursuit of the Bowhead was begun in Spitsbergen and Greenland waters over 300 years ago, and at times hundreds of sail, representing many nations, resorted to these waters. In spite of temporary revivals the industry shrank from scarcity of whales and the whalers sought other seas. Little whaling was done in the Canadian waters of Davis strait and Baffin Bay until about one hundred years ago when the discoveries of the British explorers Ross and Parry disclosed the abundance of whales in these waters, leading to a rapid increase of the British whaling fleet, mostly fitted out from Hull, Dundee, Kirkcaldy, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Aberdeen, reaching a maximum in 1868 of thirty steam and sailing vessels (Low, 1906, p. 250).* After that time the numbers declined, although whaling ships frequented Baffin Bay in small numbers until 1912. The United Mates whalers did not carry on Arctic whaling until 1846, and in 1860 began operating in Hudson Bay, but after 1870 transferred most of their vessels to the Pacific coast, and by 1903 only one United States and one Scottish vessel were whaling in the bay. In the early days of the whale fishery, whales were plentiful as far south, as Marble Island and northward to Repulse Bay. Later fewer whales were taken in these southern waters and the whalers confined themselves to the southern shores of Southampton Island and the waters of Roes Welcome. According to Low (1906, p. 257) the whales were known to enter Hudson Strait as early as April, and in June and July were found along the land-floe on both sides of Roes Welcome, later proceeding to Repulse Bay and through Frozen Strait into Foxe channel. The northern and eastern parts of Foxe channel are too difficult to navigate on account of numerous shoals and reefs in the known parts, and continuous masses of ice, and these waters were the only portions of the bay where the whales were left undisturbed. Late in autumn the whales passed through Hudson strait going eastward. The migration in Davis strait began in March off Frobisher Bay and 2 Canada’s Eastern Arctic:Its history, resources, population and administration,pp. 81- 83 *In this paper the modern nomenclature is used, followed by a citation of the original description of each species, with the “Type Locality” or place where the specimen was obtained to form the basis of the description. The confusion in names has been largely due to insufficient material and many individual variations of one species due to age, etc., have been described as new species. Inuit Contact and Colonization Readings Cumberland sound, crossing to the Greeenland side later and proceeding north to Melville Bay, from whence they crossed to the western side of Baffin Bay, sometimes being found in Jones sound and Lancaster sound in July and August, as well as in numbers at the mouth of Pond inlet. They reached Cumberland sound again in October, and remained along the edge of the new ice until December, after which their position until the next March is unknown. The growing scarcity of whales by 1903-04, may be indicated by the statement of Low that with an average whale producing about one ton of " whalebone " worth about $15,000 and twenty or thirty tons of oil valued at $100 per ton, the chase was becoming unprofitable, and the ships frequently returned empty. As the price of " whalebone " dropped almost to zero a few years later, and petroleum products had largely taken the place of whale oil, the whaling industry languished for some years and never revived for the now rare Bowheads. Sutton (1932, p. 89) gives notes on occasional whales killed by Eskimos around Southampton island since 1924, and states that he saw several during his stay in 1929-1930, and heard of a good many more. Later whaling developments have been in the capture of formerly ignored species, taken by shore factories in temperate zones and floating factories in the Antarctic regions, where whales are still numerous enough to be hunted profitably. In primitive times, the Eskimos of some districts captured a few whales by lancing them from their skin boats, using the flesh for food, the oil for food and fuel, and the bones for making implements. During the heyday of the whaling industry, the white whalers employed considerable native assistance, and the natives became to a large extent dependent upon the whalers. After the whaler had gone, as well as most of the whales, the Eskimos occasionally captured whales with the gear left behind by the white whalers, but serious whaling operations have now practically ceased. Captain Henry Toke Munn (1932), who had a trading station at Pond Inlet in 1922, states that a large Greenland whale was driven into an ice lead by Killer Whales and shot by a native with a •303 rifle. This whale yielded 1,600 pounds of bone and about twenty tons of oil. The Bowhead feeds largely on small marine vertebrates, principally copepods, known as " whale food." At Pangnirtung, Baffin island, in 1928, I was told that the Bowhead was not hunted there any more but two had been seen near Kingua, near the head of Cumberland sound, during the white whale fishery. The natives said that " whale food " had been scarce for several years and the Bowhead is coming back because " 3 Canada’s Eastern Arctic:Its history, resources, population and administration,pp. 81- 83 *In this paper the modern nomenclature is used, followed by a citation of the original description of each species, with the “Type Locality” or place where the specimen was obtained to form the basis of the description. The confusion in names has been largely due to insufficient material and many individual variations of one species due to age, etc., have been described as new species. Inuit Contact and Colonization Readings whale food " is more abundant. Apparently on Ellesmere Island, which is not now inhabited by Eskimos except those employed about the posts, there were formerly whale-hunting Eskimos as bones of small whales form part of an ancient igloo ruin near the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment at Craig Harbour, and the late Inspector A.

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