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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 7 (November 1, 1929)

Sleek o' the Whale

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Sleek o' the Whale.

Our artist has given us, in his head-piece to this section a vignette of an old-time whaling station. What an immense deal could be written about New Zealand's whale-hunting history and associations! We had more than a century of it on the coast, and some whaling is still done here and there, at Tory Channel, Kaikoura, and North Auckland.
On The West Coast Of The South Island. A scene at a wayside station on the Westport-Cape Foulwind Branch Line.

On The West Coast Of The South Island.
A scene at a wayside station on the Westport-Cape Foulwind Branch Line.

There was a time when one saw many a whaleship, nearly all American, come into the Bay of Islands and Auckland, tranship their takes of oil, and get supplies. It was in 1890, I think, that I went aboard the New Bedford whaling barque Gayhead, lying off famous old Kororareka. A little later I saw that most celebrated of New Bedford blubber-hunters, the Charles W. Morgan; she came in to the Railway Wharf, Auckland. The antique-looking barque has been in the movie business in modern times, with a crowd of beauty actors and strange ruffians aboard.

But what I started out to say was to remark on, for one thing, the picturesque character of the whalers’ technical tongue. Leaving aside the adjectival eloquence of the bucko mates and boat-steerers, the professional language was full of charmingly expressive terms. Just one example. My old acquaintance, big Tom Jackson, of Kaikoura, who had been whaling for nearly sixty years, was telling the story of a wild day off Tory Channel with a killed right whale in tow of his six-oar boat. They were buffeted by the “but-end of a nor'-wester” and they might have been swamped by the breaking seas, but the oil exudations from the harpoon and lance wounds in the whale put a slather on the waves and scarcely a spray came aboard. “The sleek o’ the whale,” he said, “smoothed off the tops o’ the seas.”

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The Wonderland of Vestland, New Zealand.“Both from the point of view of scenery and as a field for mountain sport, the New Zealand Alps can hold their own with those of Switzerland or the Rockies.“—The Rt. Hon. L. G. Amery, formerly Secretary of State for the Dominions.“The glories of these snowy mountains, piled saw-edged igainst the great broken ranges looming blue and green, and the glistening still billows of the glaciers will never fade.“—Mr. James Cowan, in “See New Zealand First.” [Photo, Dr. E. Teichelmann.] On the West Coast of the South Island. Backed by the grandeur of the Southern Alps, with peak of Mt. Cook peeping through the clouds, the terminal face of the Fox Glacier is seen reflected in the still waters of Lake Matheson. Ninety-odd miles south-west of Greymouthly rail and motor, the phenomenon of glaciers reaching down through magnificent forests to within short distance of the sea is found the region of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.

The Wonderland of Vestland, New Zealand.
“Both from the point of view of scenery and as a field for mountain sport, the New Zealand Alps can hold their own with those of Switzerland or the Rockies.“—The Rt. Hon. L. G. Amery, formerly Secretary of State for the Dominions.
“The glories of these snowy mountains, piled saw-edged igainst the great broken ranges looming blue and green, and the glistening still billows of the glaciers will never fade.“—Mr. James Cowan, in “See New Zealand First.”
[Photo, Dr. E. Teichelmann.]
On the West Coast of the South Island. Backed by the grandeur of the Southern Alps, with peak of Mt. Cook peeping through the clouds, the terminal face of the Fox Glacier is seen reflected in the still waters of Lake Matheson. Ninety-odd miles south-west of Greymouthly rail and motor, the phenomenon of glaciers reaching down through magnificent forests to within short distance of the sea is found the region of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.

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