Twentieth-Century Shore-Station Whaling in Newfoundland and Labrador (review)

The economy of Newfoundland and Labrador has depended on exploitation of natural resources, especially cod and seals. The impact of fisheries is well understood. What is less well documented and studied is the modern shore-based whaling industry, introduced to this part of the world at the turn of the twentieth century. Because research has mostly been devoted to Antarctic whaling, the body of secondary literature on the Newfoundland and Labrador whaling industry is limited. Therefore, this study by Anthony Dickinson and Chesley Sanger represents an important contribution to our understanding of what is often labeled as the worldwide whaling period from about 1900 to 1925.

It was the Biscayans who first made their way to coastal areas for whale hunting. Relatively slow swimmers were caught by men armed with handheld harpoons in small open boats. However, the picture changed radically after the introduction of cannon-fired harpoons, strong cables, and steam winches mounted on maneuverable, steam-powered catcher boats. This enabled the exploitation of large and fast-swimming whale species that were killed and brought to shore-based stations for processing. The primary individual behind the development of this new technological system was the Norwegian Svend Foyn, who did practical experimental work in the northern part of Norway during the 1860s. Another Norwegian, Adolph Nielsen, was the driving force in establishing the first whaling company in Newfoundland at the turn of twentieth century, and the system of industrialized whaling came to be called "the Norwegian technique." Indeed, it was Norwegians who initiated modern whaling throughout the world.

Dickinson and Sanger might well have gone deeper into the question of technology transfer and national style, especially since the literature on modern whaling history has dealt with technology more or less as an external force. In some respects, their book recalls The History of Modern Whaling (1982), the English-language version of the four-volume work produced by the Norwegian historians Arne Odd Johnsen and Joh. N. Tønnesen during the 1960s and 1970s. Covering the development of the whaling industry worldwide, Johnsen and Tønnesen took an economic, commercial, and political perspective, which seems to be Dickinson and Sanger's approach as well. Therefore their book first and foremost represents a starting point for future studies that address the relationship between culture and technology more directly.

Still, there is no doubt that they have extensively researched the Canadian east coast. Their detailed look at the origin, rise, and decline of each continuous cycle of the local whaling industry over a relatively long time-span is impressive. They have collected material from archives not only in Newfoundland but also elsewhere in Canada, the United States, Scotland, England, and even Norway, and from a wide range of secondary sources. One chapter is entirely devoted to the Norwegian Anders Ellefsen's whaling station at Aquaforte, not far from St. John's, although the author's use of the available historical material in Norway is limited because so much of it is written in Norwegian. Archived at the Commander Chr. Christensen Whaling Museum in Norway, for example, is invaluable correspondence between the young station-manager Ellefsen and his much more experienced father. There is also correspondence between the station manager's local lawyer and chemist Ludvig Rismuller. It would have been interesting to find out whether this well-known chemist—who came to Newfoundland with the purpose of establishing guano plants—was a radical, independent inventor or not.

The "whaling fever" in Newfoundland early in the twentieth century involved a crazy wave of speculation, unequalled in any other place where the whaling business was established, and the crash that came in relatively short order was a violent one. Because of the rapid growth of the poorly regulated industry, the Newfoundland...