This book is both a study of the wider presence of the whaling industry in Newfoundland and Labrador between 1898 and 1972, and a comprehensive case study of the ‘Ellefsen Papers’ and the Aquaforte whaling station. Aquaforte was the only entirely Norwegian-owned factory in Newfoundland at the turn of the century, and one of the only whaling companies to retain all company records, making it an invaluable resource for maritime historians. The archive consists of business transactions, operations details, personal letters, photographs, wage accounts, equipment lists, and product information. The journal introduces the Aquaforte station in the context of global whaling, then traces the business history of the Ellefsen family, and then covers in detail the short history of Aquaforte, from its inception in 1898 to its collapse in 1908 due to stock exploitation. A postscript details both the family’s return to Norway and the whaling cycles in Newfoundland and Labrador post-Aquaforte, between 1908 and 1972, when the Canadian government placed a moratorium on whaling. The book reproduces numerous maps, photographs, lists, and tables. It concludes with a bibliography and six appendices providing relevant whaling industry statistics.
Newfoundland and Labrador has a long history of commercial whaling, beginning in the first half of the sixteenth century when Basque whalers established seasonal stations on the Labrador coast from which to hunt bowheads and North Atlantic right whales. Anthony Dickinson and Chesley Sanger examine the region's modern shore-station industry from its beginnings in 1896 to its peak catch season in 1904 through subsequent cycles of decline and revival until its enforced closure in 1972 by the federal government.Modern shore-station whaling on Canada's eastern shores developed with the spread of Norwegian-dominated whaling from local areas where stocks that had been depleted by new hunting technologies to more productive locations in the North Atlantic and elsewhere. Twentieth-Century Shore-Station Whaling in Newfoundland and Labrador adds to a growing number of regionally specific case studies that collectively illustrate the complex nature of the history of global whaling. Dickinson and Sanger further demonstrate how participants in the industry were instrumental in developing other whaling initiatives, including those in British Columbia.
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