Federal scientists discovered the battered remnants of two whaling ships near Wainwright in the Chukchi Sea this fall.
The ships are believed to be from 1871 when 33 ships were trapped by sea ice.
All 1,219 whalers stranded in that event were rescued, but it was a low point for the Yankee whaling industry.
Brad Barr is a NOAA archeologist who led the expedition to find the ships using sonar to map the sea floor. Barr says the ships are weathered, but still recognizable as wreckage.
BARR: In other words they are big wooden beams… sheathing of the hulls. We see the bolts that held the keel to the frame of the vessel. And we found a number of artifacts like anchors and pieces of rigging and pieces of the tryworks that was used to boil down the blubber that they were collecting from the whales.
TOWNSEND: Were you surprised that there was anything left given that they were in fairly shallow water?
BARR: Oh, absolutely. If you think about it, every year — for 144 years — the ground ice has formed in the shallow waters adjacent to the Chukchi. And every year that ice that’s right down to the bottom moves around with the storms and the winds. If you think about that, and something that’s on the bottom and all of that big, tons and tons of ice that’s sitting on top of it, moving it around with the storms and the winds… you would expect that there wouldn’t be anything there.
TOWNSEND: How valuable are these ships to archaeologists such as yourself? What’s the historical value here?
BARR: The value lies in knowing that something’s there so when something’s proposed that may disturb those archaeological resources, that those activities can happen without disturbing the archaeological integrity of those sites.
TOWNSEND: Tell us about the history here… how did these ships get stuck in the ice?
BARR: In 1871 they had been coming to that area to whale for quite a number of years. The population of bowheads had been significantly reduced since 1848 when the first whalers came to the Arctic. And they were staying later and later in the year because they were finding fewer whales. So they were taking greater risks… and one of the risks was that they would get caught in the ice as the ice was forming. What happened was, there was a wind shift. And it happened pretty regularly. It brought the sea ice into the shore. Now normally the wind would’ve shifted back, there would’ve been a leave and they could’ve sailed out. But it just so happened that particular year the wind didn’t shift back. The vessels were caught in the ice — many were crushed in the ice in place — and because they realized they weren’t going to get out, the captains decided collectively that they would take the 1,219 people on board, including some of the captains’ wives and children, and get into the smaller whale boats to sail and row down to a fleet of vessels that were waiting down past Icy Point to save them. As a result, the losses — about two-thirds of those vessels were from the New Bedford whaling fleet… if you do the actual monetary conversions of the cost of the loss to the New Bedford whaling industry, it was about $33 million. It was quite a blow to the industry… and it contributed to the demise of the whaling of the Yankee fleets in the waters of the United States.
TOWNSEND: It seems astounding that no lives were lost during this incident. As you said in your research, the ships were being crushed in the ice… Was it a surprise that there wasn’t one life lost?
BARR: I think that’s the most compelling part of the story. The fact that these people were in this incredibly life-threatening situation — remember that they were in these small boats, 20-25 feet long and overloaded with people… they were only meant to carry six or seven and they were carrying some 20 people. And they were dressed in only the clothes that they had on their backs and the few personal possessions they could fit in. It was just amazing that nobody was killed as a result of this.
Brad Barr is an archeologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lori Townsend is the chief editor, senior vice president of journalism and senior host for Alaska Public Media. You can send her news tips and program ideas for Talk of Alaska and Alaska Insight at ltownsend@alaskapublic.org or call 907-550-8452. Read more about Lori here.
