Subsistence whaling in Alaska

• Main Author: van Veenen, Erik
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cambridge 1977
• Subjects: Pacific; Baldwin; Yankee; bowhead whale; eskimo*; Alaska
• Online Access: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/293537; https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40676

In a splendid geographic setting, the Eskimo of western and northwestern Alaska have for centuries risked the ice and elements in pursuit of one of the largest and most magnificent animals on earth, the Bowhead whale. The life cycle of the Bowhead whale wholly depends on the pack ice, near the edge of which it lives throughout the year. Commercial exploitation by Yankee whalers made heavy inroads on the Bowhead whale stocks of the north Pacific Ocean. Half a century of commercial exploitation of the Bowhead whale by Yankee whalers not only made heavy inroads on the whale stocks, it also made a heavy imprint on the life of the neolithic Eskimo whalers. Modern technolo~ical aids drastically altered the pattern of post-white contact whaling by Eskimos. This pattern was allowed to stabilize to some extent after the collapse of the commercial whaling industry in 1908. After the second world war a new wave of white presence in the north again caused drastic social and economic changes to take place. Earning opportunities on military and oil pipeline construction affected whaling traditions. Many inexperienced Eskimo men aspiring for the traditional social status of whaling captain, were with their high incomes able for the first time to outfit their own crews. The century-old traditions in whaling eroded as a result, and some Eskimo whaling became merely a form of sport. In 1977 the interference of powerful conservationist groups, alarmed by the increased number of animals wounded by inexperienced and unethical whalers brought about an International Whaling Commission ban on the taking of Bowhead whales. Digitisation of this thesis was sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.