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Lifelines: Canada's East Coast Fisheries

Swales and Whales
Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest
 
Fuel, Fashion, Food and Fertilizer
Swales and Whales: Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest

 

Without markets for whale products, there would have been no incentive to hunt them, but demand was persistently high.

Whale oil was used for centuries as fuel for lamps and to make high-quality candles. It was also an excellent machine oil and an ingredient in soap.


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Harrod's Stores Catalogue,
London, England, 1895

The brightest and cleanest-burning candles were made from sperm whale oil.


When kerosene and petroleum reduced the demand for marine animal oil, the whaling industry was kept alive by changes in fashion. Baleen (whalebone) shaped clothing, and was used in products such as umbrellas and whips.


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New Bedford City Register,
New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A., 1892


A whale's lean meat and bone eventually found uses as well. The flesh was marketed as animal food, and the offal and bones were dried and ground up for fertilizer. In the twentieth century, quick processing and refrigeration brought large amounts of whale meat to dining tables in countries where it was considered a delicacy.



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