The news of what had happened traveled quickly through the fleet. A flood of gifts arrived—food and clothing. The captains of the other whalers offered us jobs. Captain Coggeshall told us the Alabaster's hold was near full and she was headed home to New Bedford soon as she caught a couple more whales. He said he'd be happy to take any-one along who wanted to go. Anxious to make up for their losses aboard the Sea Hawk, though, most of my shipmates signed aboard other whalers, Dexter and Garret among them. Whaling was good this season, the best, or so everyone said. As Garret and Dexter left to board the Vagabond, Garret shook my hand. “I owe you my life, Bones. We all do. Write to me, will you?”
I nodded, squeezing his hand tight, unable to speak.
Dexter clapped me on the back, and then gave me a hug.
“You're a good man, Nick,” he said, his voice thick. “The best there is.”
“Aye.”
“You'll be a great carver. You already are. Father would be proud.”
“Aye.”
“Take care, brother.”
“You too.”
“I'll be home someday. I'll come visit your shop.”
“Aye, Dex. I know.”
'Twas a considerable grand mansion. Just as I remembered it.
I rapped softly and, without waiting for an answer, opened the front door and stepped inside. “Aunt Agatha?”
Then she was there, reaching up to wrap her floury arms round my neck. “Bless me, why, bless me, if it isn't little Nicholas!” After hugging me a minute or so, she pulled back, wiping her eyes on her apron. “They said ye weren't dead after all. They said ye was even a hero. My stars and body, to think of it! My Nicholas, a hero!”
I couldn't say anything. My throat tightened, my grin so wide I thought I'd split my ears. By fire, it's good to be home!
Aunt Agatha straightened herself. “Have ye forgotten your manners, young Nicholas? Introduce me to your friend.”
I motioned for Elizabeth to join me in the foyer. “Aunt Agatha, I'd like you to meet Miss Elizabeth Thorndike. She needs a home. I wrote and asked if she could stay here.”
“So ye did.”
“Can she?”
“Come here, girl, let me have a look at ye.” Frowning, Aunt Agatha pulled Elizabeth toward her and studied her close. “Humph. Well, I'd say ye need some meat on them bones. I've got fresh biscuits coming out of the oven, and I'll put water on for tea. I've got some strawberry preserves folks declare be the best in New Bedford. What do ye say?”
Elizabeth smiled, casting a glance and a wink at me. “Aye. Biscuits, preserves, and tea sound wonderful, Miss Agatha.”
“Well, don't stand a-gawking, young Nicholas, set the table.”
“Aye, Aunt Agatha. Aye.”
'Twas in the early morning, standing in the cupola as the sun painted the sky with purples and oranges, that I kissed Miss Elizabeth Thorndike right proper. Hair like corn silk, eyes blue as cornflowers, her lips were soft and warm, and she smelled of lilacs.
Afterward, we gazed out the cupola, a carved tooth, a cat of ivory, and a wooden statue of a man sitting beside us on the win-dowsill. Past New Bedford to the river we gazed, taking turns with the spyglass. Ships jammed the wharves. Several were out on the river, sails gleaming white, men clambering up the shrouds. I imagined the shouted commands, the greenies feeling awkward in their stiff new dungarees. “What do you see?” I asked, hugging her tight.
She smiled, handing me the spyglass. “Why, I see home, Nicholas Robbins. Take a look for yourself.”
At one time, strolling through the streets of New Bedford, over the cobblestones and under the elms, past the apothecary, the livery, the blacksmith, you would have seen a sign hanging over the door of a shop, reading.
Nicholas Robbins
Extraordinary Carver
Est. 1854
And, if you peeked through the window, you would see Mr. Robbins at work, a tall, lean man, producing masterpieces so fine you would have gladly spent every penny in your pocket to own one. And if you went inside to the jangle of bells, you would have met Mrs. Robbins, a lovely woman with hair like corn silk, who would have taken your order with a smile and arranged for delivery. And, if you were especially lucky, you might happen to be there as three young girls marched in from school, hair like their mother's, two with eyes blue as cornflowers and one with eyes green as shamrocks. You would have seen the carver stop what he was doing and swing each child atop his shoulders, laughing as their hair dusted the rafters.
Since time immemorial whalers combed the warm waters of the world, taking whale after whale with little thought for the future, never dreaming that the plentiful “fish,” as they called them, would one day hover on the brink of extinction. Through the centuries, the demand for whale products increased, reaching a peak in the mid-1800s. Whale oil was used as a lubricant and illuminant, as well as in soap making. Spermaceti, the waxy substance found only in the heads of sperm whales, was un-surpassed as a clear-burning oil. At that time, American whale-men obtained baleen from a species of whale called the right whale (so called because it was the “right” whale to hunt). Baleen was hard yet somewhat flexible and was used in many of the ways we use plastic today. In the mid-1800s, the hoopskirt was all the rage, and the demand for baleen skyrocketed, as baleen was necessary to maintain the skirt's fashionable shape.i But by this time, whales were becoming more and more difficult to find.
In July 1848, the bark Superior sailed north into the Bering Strait and discovered waters teeming with bowhead whales, a species previously unexploited by Yankee whalemen. Not only was the bowhead baleen far longer than the baleen of the right whale, but the bowhead were slow-moving, placid creatures that were blanketed in fat, yielding more than two and a half times the oil of a like-sized sperm whale.ii Word spread like floodwater, and soon the western Arctic was filled with whalers jostling for position. Over the next several decades, Yankee whalers pro-ceeded to harvest an Arctic whale population that had sustained the native peoples for millennia. As the bowhead population began to decline, whalers pushed farther and farther north, sometimes spending winters encased in ice. Two whaling disas-ters occurred in 1871 and 1876, in which a total of forty-five whalers were crushed in ice—the ships, whale oil, equipment, and fifty men, lost.iii
Life aboard a whaler in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-turies was anything but grand. A whaler was really a floating fac-tory. Its purpose was to hunt whales and process them while at sea. The men worked long hours—four hours on, four hours off, day in and day out—unless there was a storm, a whale chase, or a whale to render. In that case, they labored until the work was done. The job was dangerous, too. The leading causes of death were disease, falls from aloft, and encounters with whales. Adolescent male sperm whales were especially dangerous. A sperm whale could use its flukes to great effect, often smashing boats to splinters and sending men to the deep. As Nick realized in his first hunt, a hundred things can and did go wrong in a whale chase. And once the whale was brought alongside, the danger was far from over. Sharp spades and cutting knives sliced off many a foot or finger, and the blubber swinging inboard weighed tons.
The captain of a whaler bore a heavy responsibility. It was his job not only to navigate dangerous, sometimes uncharted waters but also to train a crew of mostly inexperienced men to hunt and kill whales, to render the maximum amount of oil, and to deliver the payload home safely.iv If he failed, it was possible he would never command a whaler again. More often than not, the captain of a whaler was a competent mariner, fair-minded and decent. But the ship was an island of its own, and the captain its un-disputed master. In those days, it was believed that the crew was obedient only through the threat of punishment. Shipping laws allowed captains to maintain discipline through corporal punish-ment. It was not unusual for whaling captains to lock men in irons, carry a gun, lay on the lash, or hang sailors from the yardarms in an effort to maintain order, prevent desertion, and “motivate” the crew. These expectations were explicitly stat
ed by Captain Mellen in 1857 on the whaler Junior after leaving New Bedford for a whaling voyage: “I mean to have order and fair dealing all around. And if anyone fails to do his duty the shipping laws of the United States give me authority to punish you exactly as I see fit—from irons in the brig to lashing or hanging at a yardarm.”v What might be considered a more typical captain's speech occurred aboard the America in 1862: “Well, men, the land is behind us and I suppose you all know you are a-whaling. It is my duty to bring the vessel and every one of you back to port four years from now and with as much oil as we can get by rea-sonable attention to business. Now listen to me. When you are called, do your duty. If you are mean or ugly or fail to do your part or show any disrespect to your officers, you will be severely punished. We shall have no rebellion aboard this ship.”vi
Nantucket, a small island town off the coast of Massa-chusetts, became the first whaling capital of the world. In the 1600s, whales were so plentiful that one could literally stand on the shores of Nantucket and see whales frolicking in the ocean. Nantucketers began their whaling careers by rendering beached whales. Soon they ventured out onto the open waters, and by the time of the Revolutionary War, Nantucketers roamed the Atlantic, hunting sperm whales. The majority of the town's industry was devoted to whaling—cooperages, carpenter shops, sailmaking lofts, candleworks, and shipyards. Many of the town's leading men were either shipowners or worked as captains or mates aboard the fleet of whalers. As soon as they grew old enough, sons followed their fathers into the whaling life and worked their way up the ranks. But the face of whaling changed as the Pacific fishery opened, and whale crews were now gone for years rather than months. Whaleships necessarily became bigger, with a deeper draft to handle the demands of two-, three-, or four-year voyages. The Nantucket harbor was too shallow for these larger ships, and there were other coastal towns vying for a piece of the whaling pie.vii In the 1820s, New Bedford, Massachusetts, emerged as the new whaling capital. Like Nantucket, most of New Bedford was devoted to the whaling life. Children like Nick and Dexter, born into that environment, grew up with the scent of whale oil in their nostrils and dreams of the adventurous life.
But the realities of whaling soon took their toll. Fathers were separated from families for years on end, only to have to leave on another voyage soon after arriving home. Wives solved this prob-lem to some extent by deciding to come along and raise their families aboard the ship, but this was a later development. The community suffered when too many men were lost at sea, killed or maimed. Sometimes the entire ship was lost, or it returned to port with inferior oil or with its holds empty, as whales became more and more scarce.
The captain and crew were paid according to how much whale oil they brought home. No oil, no pay. One-third of the oil's gross profits went to the owners. One-third went to supplies and maintenance of equipment. The final third was divided between captain and crew. The captain, the officers, the har-poneers, and the cooper generally earned between 1/8 and 1/100, depending on their rank and experience. The experienced whalemen, the cook, and the steward took between 1/100 and 1/150 shares. The “greenies,” or landlubbers, like Nick, earned from 1/150 to 1/200. A whaleman's share was called a “lay,” so Nick would have signed on for a “1/200 lay.” There are recorded instances in which a greenie ended up owing the owners money after the completion of the voyage. Owners charged the crew for insurance, for goods from the slop chest, and so on. A greenie like Nick would make purchases against his pay, and if the amount of oil taken was poor, he was in debt upon arrival in port! Sometimes, due to desertion and death, only a few of the original men returned to port to collect their wages. The average pay for a foremast hand at the end of a whaling voyage was less than twenty cents per day, one-third to one-half the amount he could have earned on land.viii
For the many men who found life aboard a whaler intoler-able, desertion was an option frequently exercised. Indeed, so many men deserted in Hawaii that the port cities quickly devel-oped strict rules to ensure that every sailor who came ashore returned that evening to his own ship. Hawaii had recently been proselytized by Christian missionaries, so the influence of scores of sailors on the lam and without much money in their pockets was considered less than desirable. Nick and Dexter experienced a Honolulu “welcoming committee” similar to that which must have greeted countless unlucky whalemen seeking to escape a life that hadn't lived up to their expectations.
After about 1860, it became increasingly difficult to obtain a crew for the less-than-glamorous occupation. New Bedford and Nantucket men were now likely to be the captains, the mates, the owners—the big money behind the ships—while the com-mon crew was filled with whatever men they could find. Because of the extremes of the whaling life, the average age of the com-mon whaleman was little more than twenty. Few sailors before the mast were over thirty years of age. Owners became so anx-ious to fill the ranks of their crew, they signed on anyone with warm blood, whether he had sailing experience, whether he could speak English, or whether he was a drunkard or even a convict. Whale crews became much like a floating League of Nations, a conglomeration of men from all parts of the world.ix
A word on language: the communities of both Nantucket and New Bedford were traditionally Quaker, developing lan-guage patterns modeled after the King James version of the Bible, liberally sprinkled with thee's and thou's and ye's. By the mid-1800s, influences from other communities—and really, from other nations—began to be apparent, especially among the speech patterns of the younger generation. No longer wanting to be “old-fashioned,” they gradually adopted the more common you. There was certainly a generation gap in the language pat-terns, which is reflected in Voyage of Ice. Even so, usage of ye ver-sus you among individual speakers of that era was often arbitrary, as there were likely as many variations in speech as there were people.
After the rise and fall of the western Arctic whale fishery in the decades following 1850, the whaling industry continued to wane as alternative illuminants such as kerosene replaced the demand for whale oil. Fashions also changed, and by the early 1900s, other products replaced baleen.x For all intents and pur-poses, the glory days of the whaling era were at an end.
In 1946, alarmed by the decimation of the world whale pop-ulations, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established to maintain healthy whale populations and to regu-late the whaling industry. At various times between 1946 and 1985, the IWC designated certain whale species as protected, established whale sanctuaries, and set limits on the number and type of whales that could be taken. Despite these efforts, whale populations continued to decline, and some species faced extinction. In 1985, the IWC issued a moratorium on commercial whale hunting, which remains in effect today. The IWC also reg-ulates the hunting of whales for subsistence by native populations, striving to maintain a balance between continued growth of whale species and the honoring of cultural tradition.xi
It is this author's dream that all commercial whaling will cease forever and that all nations will recognize the value of a whale beyond its ability to provide humankind with products, but rather as a creature with its own fundamental right to exis-tence, irrespective of humanity. It is this author's dream that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can one day stand on the many shores of our planet and once again see whales frolicking in the ocean waters.
i. John R. Bockstoce, Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986), 29, 165–166.
ii. Ibid., 91.
iii. Murray Lundberg, “Thar She Blows! Whaling in Alaska and the Yukon,” ExploreNorth, http://www.explorenorth.com/library/yafeatures/bl-whaling.htm.
iv. Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (New York: Viking, 2000), 200.
v. Chester S. Howland, Thar She Blows! Thundering Adventures of Whaling and Mutiny (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1951), 95–96.
vi. Ibid., 227.
vii. Albert Cook Church, Whale Ships an
d Whaling (New York: W. W. Norton, 1938), 17–18.
viii. Bockstoce, Whales, Ice, and Men, 35–37.
ix. New Bedford Whaling Museum, http://www.whalingmuseum.org.
x. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Imprint of the Past: The Ecological History of New Bedford Harbor,” http://www.epa.gov/nbh/html/whaling.html.
xi. International Whaling Commission, http://www.iwcoffice.org/iwc.htm.
aback – with the wind on the forward side of the sails, causing sails to be driven backward against the mast. Can happen accidentally or can be executed on purpose to stop a vessel's forward momentum.
abaft – toward the stern of a vessel; to the rear of. The word “abaft” is used in relation to an object—for exam-ple, “abaft the mainmast” or “abaft the beam.”
aft – toward the stern of a vessel. The opposite of “ahead.”
aloft – above the deck of the ship.
amidship shelter – an unenclosed flat-roofed shelter that provides a somewhat dry workspace. Spare whaleboats are stored on top.
amidships – in the center of the ship.
avast – to stop. “Avast hauling!” means “to stop hauling.”
bark – a bark is usually a three-masted sailing vessel, with the fore-and mainmasts square-rigged and the mizzen fore-and-aft rigged.
beat – to make way to windward by zigzagging through a series of tacks.
binnacle – the housing of a ship's compass and lamp.
block – a rounded wooden case housing a pulley, used for lowering and lifting heavy loads. A line through a block forms a tackle.
bo'sun's chair – a flat seat attached to ropes, used to hoist sailors aloft to repair rigging. (Bo'sun is short for boatswain and is pronounced BO-sun. The bo'sun was responsible for maintaining the rigging, sails, and hull.)
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