. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. ^ capsized boats frequently and only ex-perienced oarsmen were wanted. I was told thatmore men lost their lives at this than at the rightwhale fishing. We learned afterwards that theNova Zemhla picked up seven here, while the Arc-tic bagged seventeen. The whale killed in themorning by McLean was over twenty feet other two were smaller. The heads werebrought on board so I had a good look at them. I saw white stalactites of spermaceti hangingfrom them to stalagmite incrustations of the sameon deck, and I noticed that the oil was free fromsm
. A voyage to the arctic in the whaler Aurora. ^ capsized boats frequently and only ex-perienced oarsmen were wanted. I was told thatmore men lost their lives at this than at the rightwhale fishing. We learned afterwards that theNova Zemhla picked up seven here, while the Arc-tic bagged seventeen. The whale killed in themorning by McLean was over twenty feet other two were smaller. The heads werebrought on board so I had a good look at them. I saw white stalactites of spermaceti hangingfrom them to stalagmite incrustations of the sameon deck, and I noticed that the oil was free Captain Guy of the Arctic IN THE WHALER AURORA 91 The neighborhood of Resolution Island wasnotorious for its awful currents, and the rise andfall of tide about the western end of HudsonStraits made navigation on these comparativelyuncharted waters exceedingly dangerous. I once heard Captain Guy tell of a narrow es-cape he had in the neighborhood of the upper Sav-age Islands. From the barrel, he saw a rockahead, and ordered the lead cast. Three fathomswas found, so he backed off and anchored. In afew hours he was astonished to find an islandwhere the submerged rock had been, and he after-wards learned from a reliable source that the riseand fall of tide at this place was over forty were abundant on the north coast ofthe straits, and musk-ox were also found. Some-times whalers coming down for the southwestfishing, in the autumn, killed numbers of caribou was the barren land variety, andsome of the heads were enormous. In this speciesthe beam was long and straggly,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidvoyage, booksubjectwhaling
