Previous to this, even wise whale-men thought it useless to go
"to the east'ard of P'int Barrow" for this big whale; since that date
the catch in Canadian waters has been thirteen hundred and forty-five
whales. Ignoring the oil altogether and putting the "bone" (baleen) at
two thousand pounds each whale and the value of it at five dollars a
pound, both conservative figures, we find that thirteen and a half
millions in whale-values have gone out of this Canadian sea-pasture the
past twenty years, by the back-door route.
Are there as good fish in the sea as have come out of it? Expert
evidence differs. Captain George B. Leavitt, of the _Narwhal_, in 1907
lowered twenty-two times without striking and yet went out with fifteen
whales. He says he saw that season more whales than any year previous,
but that they are on the move east and north.
The general practice is for a ship to reach this water from San
Francisco in the early summer; whale as long as the ice will permit; go
into winter quarters at Herschel; get out of the ice as soon as possible
next summer, probably the first week in July; whale as long as it can
stay without getting nipped by the new ice of September; carry out its
catch through Bering Strait to San Francisco as late as possible;
dispose of the cargo; refit; return next season, and do it all over
again.
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