{"id":401,"date":"2011-04-07T20:19:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T20:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/nouvelle-france\/"},"modified":"2012-04-13T10:37:48","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T14:37:48","slug":"basque-whalers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/economic-activities\/basque-whalers\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Whalers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Basques, from the Pyrennes region between modern France and Spain, had been hunting whales in their own waters since at least the 11th<\/sup> century. By the early 16th<\/sup> century they were venturing out across the Atlantic to visit the Gulf of St Lawrence and adjacent areas, at least 20 years before the \u201cofficial\u201d voyages of discovery financed by Francois I. Every year they set out in pursuit of their precious prey, at the time considered fish (called \u201cLenten bacon, fast fish, blubber fish\u201d or \u201ccrapois\u201d). Whale meat and fat were indeed highly prized and the blubber was used to make oil for lamps. In 1534, Jacques Cartier encountered many Basque whalers on his first expedition to North America, mainly in the Strait of Belle-Isle, which separates the island of Newfoundland from Quebec and Labrador.<\/p>\n

Basque galleons ride at anchor in Red Bay, Labrador<\/strong>
Richard Schlecht\/National Geographic Stock<\/div>\">\"Basque<\/a>

Basque galleons ride at anchor in Red Bay, Labrador<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The following article recounts the history of whale hunting as practised by the Basques. After providing a detailed description of the evolution of this practice and the resources found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it presents the sites where the whalers settled, among others, at Red Bay in Labrador. The author explains the techniques and methods used by Basque whalers to catch and derive profit from these mammals. Lastly, it describes the everyday life of these courageous men who landed on the coasts as soon as the ice melted, and left when winter returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Basques, from the Pyrennes region between modern France and Spain, had been hunting whales in their own waters since at least the 11th century. By the early 16th century they were venturing out across the Atlantic to visit the Gulf of St Lawrence and adjacent areas, at least 20 years before the \u201cofficial\u201d voyages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":300,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2925,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/401\/revisions\/2925"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/virtual-museum-of-new-france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}