Newfoundland and Labrador has a long history of commercial whaling, beginning in the first half of the sixteenth century when Basque whalers established seasonal stations on the Labrador coast from which to hunt bowheads and North Atlantic right whales. Anthony Dickinson and Chesley Sanger examine the region's modern shore-station industry from its beginnings in 1896 to its peak catch season in 1904 through subsequent cycles of decline and revival until its enforced closure in 1972 by the federal government.Modern shore-station whaling on Canada's eastern shores developed with the spread of Norwegian-dominated whaling from local areas where stocks that had been depleted by new hunting technologies to more productive locations in the North Atlantic and elsewhere. Twentieth-Century Shore-Station Whaling in Newfoundland and Labrador adds to a growing number of regionally specific case studies that collectively illustrate the complex nature of the history of global whaling. Dickinson and Sanger further demonstrate how participants in the industry were instrumental in developing other whaling initiatives, including those in British Columbia.

Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations brings together ten papers by eight well-known historians of Newfoundland and Labrador. The papers address a wide variety of subject matter and open many avenues for further research. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography on the Newfoundland and Labrador in the Twentieth century. This bibliography is organized by topic and will serve the needs of the general reader and specialists alike. Twentieth Century Newfoundland: Explorations highlight the scope and complexity of present day writing about the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. James Hiller, Professor of History at Memorial University and author of a number of articles on Newfoundland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Peter Neary, Professor of History at the University of Weste Ontario and the author of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929-1949(1998).

This volume seeks to critically review the contemporary state of maritime historiography, as it stands at the volume’s publication date of 1995. The volume is comprised of thirteen essays, each focused on the recent research into the maritime concerns of a particular geographical location, listed as follows: Australia; Canada; China; Denmark; Germany; Greece; Ibero-America; India; the Netherlands; the Ottoman Empire; Spain; the United States; and a final chapter concerning historians and maritime labour in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. One concern made evident by the collection is the lack of stable identity and cohesive aims within maritime history, the subject holds many conflicting definitions and concepts. The purpose of this volume is to explore the recent developments in maritime history, plus the growth of scholarly interest, to provide a ‘beacon and stimulus for future work’ and to clearly direct and define maritime historiography toward a solid position in the field of history.

This book is both a study of the wider presence of the whaling industry in Newfoundland and Labrador between 1898 and 1972, and a comprehensive case study of the ‘Ellefsen Papers’ and the Aquaforte whaling station. Aquaforte was the only entirely Norwegian-owned factory in Newfoundland at the turn of the century, and one of the only whaling companies to retain all company records, making it an invaluable resource for maritime historians. The archive consists of business transactions, operations details, personal letters, photographs, wage accounts, equipment lists, and product information. The journal introduces the Aquaforte station in the context of global whaling, then traces the business history of the Ellefsen family, and then covers in detail the short history of Aquaforte, from its inception in 1898 to its collapse in 1908 due to stock exploitation. A postscript details both the family’s return to Norway and the whaling cycles in Newfoundland and Labrador post-Aquaforte, between 1908 and 1972, when the Canadian government placed a moratorium on whaling. The book reproduces numerous maps, photographs, lists, and tables. It concludes with a bibliography and six appendices providing relevant whaling industry statistics.

Canadian Geography: A Scholarly Bibliography is a compendium of published works on geographical studies of Canada and its various provinces. It includes works on geographical studies of Canada as a whole, on multiple provinces, and on individual provinces. Works covered include books, monographs, atlases, book chapters, scholarly articles, dissertations, and theses. The contents are organized first by region into main chapters, and then each chapter is divided into sections: General Studies, Cultural and Social Geography, Economic Geography, Historical Geography, Physical Geography, Political Geography, and Urban Geography. Each section is further sub-divided into specific topics within each main subject. All known publications on the geographical studies of Canada—in English, French, and other languages—covering all types of geography are included in this bibliography. It is an essential resource for all researchers, students, teachers, and government officials needing information and references on the varied aspects of the environments and human geographies of Canada.

In The Seal Hunt: Cultures, Economies and Legal Regimes, Nikolas Sellheim offers a deep analysis of the seal hunt worldwide. He engages on a journey from the northern to the southern hemisphere and explores how the seal hunt has shaped cultures all over the world up to this day. By analysing the different national and international regimes dealing with the seal hunt, Sellheim shows how the perception of the seal and the seal hunt has changed over time and space. Focusing on the European Union and the World Trade Organization, the volume offers an account on how opposition towards the seal hunt has found its way onto the international spheres of governance and trade.

Through international and multi-period chapters, this volume explores the origins and development of industrialisation from its emergence in 18th century Europe to its contemporary ubiquity. It interrogates the widespread exploitation of natural resources that forged industrialisation and its environmental and social legacy in our globalised world.

Despite declining stocks worldwide and increasing health risks, artisanal whaling remains a cultural practice tied to nature’s rhythms. The Wake of the Whale presents the art, history, and challenge of whaling in the Caribbean and North Atlantic, based on a decade of award-winning fieldwork. Sightings of pilot whales in the frigid Nordic waters have drawn residents of the Faroe Islands to their boats and beaches for nearly a thousand years. Down in the tropics, around the islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, artisanal whaling is a younger trade, shaped by the legacies of slavery and colonialism but no less important to the local population. Each culture, Russell Fielding shows, has developed a distinct approach to whaling that preserves key traditions while adapting to threats of scarcity, the requirements of regulation, and a growing awareness of the humane treatment of animals. Yet these strategies struggle to account for the risks of regularly eating meat contaminated with methylmercury and other environmental pollutants introduced from abroad. Fielding considers how these and other factors may change whaling cultures forever, perhaps even bringing an end to this way of life. A rare mix of scientific and social insight, The Wake of the Whale raises compelling questions about the place of cultural traditions in the contemporary world and the sacrifices we must make for sustainability. Publication of this book was supported, in part, by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

This is a collection of soundings into various aspects of the history of maritime labor from the close of the Middle Ages to the present. The spatial emphasis of the essays is north European and Atlantic since they deal with the countries around the North Sea and Baltic with some coverage of North America. Indeed, from time to time the authors leave the sea behind in order to examine broader issues such as labor markets, the regulation and institutions of seafaring, and industrial relations on the waterfront. But at all points there is a common theme of sea-related labor, and a common objective of better understanding what have often been perceived as difficult and elusive groups of people.

This book provides a comprehensive economic history of the British Whaling Trade, divided into two eras of significant technological difference. The first part concerns the traditional whaling trades that structured the industry for three centuries, from 1604-1914. The second part concerns the modern whaling trade between the years 1904-1963, characterised by technological advance and tremendous international competition. Gordon Jackson approaches the enormous subject of British Whaling from the perspectives of both the national economy of Britain, and the international whaling industry as a whole. The book consults official statistical material to determine the size and performance of various whaling fleets; eye-witness accounts and state papers for the early history of the trade; log books, and trade and customs records for the eighteenth century; and the documents of the Southern Whaling Company, Salvesen, and Unilever for insights into the modern whaling period. The book concludes with appendices containing statistical data concerning whale oil, whale stocks, and the price of goods, two bibliographies of further reading, and a conclusion that free competition and market demand simply exhausted whale stocks beyond any possibility of restoration.