. Annual report of Pierre Fortin, esquire, magistrate in command of the expedition for the protection of the fisheries in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, during the season of 1857 [microform]. Fisheries; Fisheries; Fishery policy; Pêches; Pêches; Pêches, Politique des. M'f w I .â '' I 'l k ^^i 1! '*. 149 The Black Whale which is the most valuable of all, has been met with, unfortunately in very small numbers of late years, and it has been very seldom that our whalers have had the good fortune to kill one. The Humpbacked Whale, so called on account of a hump on its back, is the most common in
. Annual report of Pierre Fortin, esquire, magistrate in command of the expedition for the protection of the fisheries in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, during the season of 1857 [microform]. Fisheries; Fisheries; Fishery policy; Pêches; Pêches; Pêches, Politique des. M'f w I .â '' I 'l k ^^i 1! '*. 149 The Black Whale which is the most valuable of all, has been met with, unfortunately in very small numbers of late years, and it has been very seldom that our whalers have had the good fortune to kill one. The Humpbacked Whale, so called on account of a hump on its back, is the most common in the Gulf, and the easiest to kill. As soon as its pur- suers get near enough, they strike a harpoon into it, and allow their boat to be towed after it by means of a line attached to the harpoon until it is exhausted, when they approach it again and kill it with a spear. The Sulphur Bottom and the Firmer arc so quick in their movements, and at the same time so wild, that it is difficult and dangerous to attack one in front and strike a harpoon into it, before it has been wounded with long sharp spears, which penetrate three or four feet into its flesh. After that it is tracked through the water by its blood, and if overtaken when the great loss of blood occasioned by its wounds has obliged it to slacken its furious course, it is harpooned and towed alongside the vessel. If this happens far from land the Whale is cut up alongside, and the pieces of blub- ber are stowed in the hold ; if near the shore it is towed into port or some well sheltered bay, and some of the crew arc left on shore to make the blubber into oil, while the vessel puts out to sea again in search of fresh prizes. The Whalers leave Gasp<5 Basin, where they are fitted out, at the beginning of June not to return for the purpose of laying up until the middle of September. The places they prefer to all others, because they generally find shoals of Whales there, are the Mingan shoals, at the west point of t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectfisheries, bookyear18
