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Lifelines: Canada's East Coast Fisheries

Swales and Whales
Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest
 
Hunting Seals and Whales
Swales and Whales: Atlantic Canada's Sea Mammal Harvest

 

For centuries, animal oils were essential to the economies of Europe and North America.

Before mineral oils became available as fuels and lubricants, animal oils were widely used for lighting, and in products as diverse as soap, grease, paint, drugs, pitch and leather softeners. Whales and seals were excellent sources of oil because their bodies contain a large amount of blubber.


Whalers - 
National Archives of Canada - NMC 40461

Detail from Pierre Desceliers' 1546 world map, showing Basque whalers
(Courtesy: National Archives of Canada
NMC 40461)


From the Basques of the sixteenth century to the Canadians of the twentieth century, generations of sealers and whalers have searched for these valuable animals in the rich seas off our east coast.


Clubbing seals - 
National Archives of Canada - C-76630

Clubbing seals, 1881
(Courtesy: National Archives of Canada
C-76630)


Vast commercial enterprises employed large numbers of people and the best technology to hunt and process the original "liquid gold". Yet, when our capacity to gather nature's bounty exceeded nature's ability to sustain itself, the future of both hunters and prey was threatened.


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