The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region. The appellation "Thule" originates from the location of Thule in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden. The links between the Thule and the Inuit are biological, cultural, and linguistic.
Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of these large mammals, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to have begun around the 12th century. However, Japanese whaling on an industrial scale began around the 1890s when Japan began to participate in the modern whaling industry, at that time an industry in which many countries participated. Japanese whaling activities have historically extended far outside Japanese territorial waters, even into whale sanctuaries protected by other countries.
This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986.
Essex was an American whaler from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. In 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., she was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Stranded thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in the ship's surviving whaleboats.
The Ann Alexander was a whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts. She is notable for having been rammed and sunk by a wounded sperm whale in the South Pacific on August 20, 1851, some 30 years after the famous incident in which the Essex was stove in and sunk by a whale in the same area.
Svend Foyn was a Norwegian whaling, shipping magnate and philanthropist. He pioneered revolutionary methods for hunting and processing whales. Svend Foyn introduced the modern harpoon cannon and brought whaling into a modern age. He is also recognized as a pioneer who introduced sealing to Vestfold County.
Dolphin drive hunting, also called dolphin drive fishing, is a method of hunting dolphins and occasionally other small cetaceans by driving them together with boats and then usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the open sea or ocean with boats and nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, the most well-known practitioner of this method. By numbers, dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat; some end up in dolphinariums.
Henrik Johan Bull was a Norwegian businessman and whaler. Henry Bull was one of the pioneers in the exploration of Antarctica.
The explosive harpoon is a type of harpoon which uses an explosive discharge to assist in whaling. In Norway, Japan, and Iceland, penta-erythritol tetra-nitrate is used in harpoon grenades. These are steel canisters that thread onto the tip of a reusable harpoon and explode by means of a hook and trigger line when they have penetrated approximately half a meter into the whale. Shrapnel and hooks that are attached to the harpoon cable are lodged into the whale's body, inhibiting the whale's ability to escape. A cable then reels the whale in as it draw its last breath. Norway uses more advanced and more expensive grenades. They claim that 80% of whales are killed instantly. Iceland uses the Norwegian grenades, which can kill even large fin whales instantaneously 84% of the time. In Japan, the use of harpoons has been shown to yield a poor rate of instantaneous fatalities.
Whaling in Norway involves subsidized hunting of minke whales for use as animal and human food in Norway and for export to Japan. Whale hunting has been a part of Norwegian coastal culture for centuries, and commercial operations targeting the minke whale have occurred since the early 20th century. Some still continue the practice in the modern day.
Nedorazumeniya Island is an island on the north coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. It lies on the north side of Taui Bay, between Amakhton Bay to the west and Nagaev Bay to the east. It is about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of the city of Magadan.
A Nantucket sleighride is an archaic term from the early days of industrial whaling, when the animals were harpooned from small open boats. The term refers to Nantucket, Massachusetts, the center of the American whaling industry, and a horse-drawn sleigh, to describe what occurs immediately following the act of harpooning: the whale, in pain from its wound, attempts to flee, but the rope attached to the harpoon drags the whalers' longboat along with it.
Sperm whaling is the hunting of these marine mammals for the oil, meat and bone that can be extracted from their bodies. Sperm whales, a large and deep-diving species, produce a waxy substance that was especially useful during the Industrial Revolution, and so they were targeted in 19th-century whaling, as exemplified in Moby Dick. Sperm oil is no longer needed, but another unusual product, ambergris, is still valued as a perfume fixative. Although the animal is classified as a vulnerable species, aboriginal whaling in limited numbers is still permitted, notably from two villages in Indonesia, for subsistence.
A harpoon cannon is a whaling implement developed in the late 19th century and most used in the 20th century. It would be mounted on the bow of a whale catcher, where it could be easily aimed with a wide field of view at the target. Powered by black powder and later, smokeless powder, it would generally fire a large steel harpoon, either solid steel or fitted with an exploding black powder, or later, penthrite (PETN) grenade.
George Pollard Jr. (1791–1870) was the captain of the whalers Essex and Two Brothers, both of which sank. Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm whale that sank Essex, served as inspiration for Captain Ahab, the whale-obsessed character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Glover Island is a small islet off the southern peninsula of Grenada.
