| Show JV ay an 09 OF Q 6 y g L 0 o V I 1 r 04 C lq ta 11 7 OD ra i V V r A 44 3 71 A t all 14 f A W Is P 4 im pa fe naturally the largest industry fn newfoundland Is the cod fishing but decidedly the most picturesque Is seal hunting one of the most perilous of the world worlds s vocations from 8 to 10 men are regularly employed in it and many an exciting adventure do these men experience in their quest for the valuable skins of the seals we vve are reminded of the dangers en countered by the fishermen when we read in a telegram from st john s of five sealing steamers being badly damaged by ice floes one having sunk wf with th the loss of 20 skins valued at 60 the scene of the hunt Is the ice fee fields which drift southward in the spring of each bear ear from the arctic regions and a bleaker or more deso late region could scarcely be found the arctic current sweeping south ward along the coasts of labrador and newfoundland carries with it a va biety of animal life and is one of the great feeding grounds for deep sea fish such as cod and mackerel which form the food of the seals there are lour four species of seal in the waters around newfoundland and labrador the bay seal the harp the hood and the square flipper the bay seal does not migrate like the others but frequents the mouths of rivers and the harbors near the coast it Is never found on the ice fee mostly taken in net it Is commercially of small importance the harp seal the seal of commerce Is so called because it has a broad curved line of connected dark spots proceeding trum frum each shoulder and meeting on oil the back above the tail tall forming a figure something like an ancient harp the hood Is much larg er than the harp the male called by the hunters Is distin gulshen from the female by a lar hood or bag of flesh on his nose which he be can inflate and use as a protection the square flipper is iden with the greenland seal but is only occasionally met with on the I 1 ice c e ff flies as off the labrador coast the gathering together of the two great herds of seals the harps and ti tie e hoods at the same spot and pre bisely at the same time every year is one of 0 the most interest interesting IU facts in natural history up to the middle of february the seals have been wander ing all over the ocean but just at this time they settle down on the ice floe or an anchor chorice ice a great plain usually frozen in solid with the land and sur rounding islands tor for the purpose of breeding with the gaff the hunter delivers a sharp blow upon the nose of the seal the most vulnerable point and in the case of 5 oung seals this blow Is in scantly f fatal atal in a moment the man is on his knees his large jackknife jack knife is at work and the skin with the abher ing fat Is detached rapidly from the carcass which Is left on the ice the pelts as the skin and adhering fat are c called ailed are then bound up in bundles and dragged over the ice to the side of the steamer the old seals aie no not t so easily disposed of as this the skull and the hide of the dog seal are frequently so thick that he cannot be killed with the gaff used on the younger ones he is therefore shot with ith a rifle each squad of seal hunters carries at least one gun in tended for this purpose the men do not cease their work until there are no more victims in sight or night closes in sometimes they go several miles away from the vessel and are obliged to remain on the ice cake until morning this Is a very perilous situation for the rea son that at times gales come up which break the fields into small pieces or blizzards come on in which many a hunter has been frozen to death last season a party of five hunters missed their steamer and bere rere ere only dis covered two days later two of 0 them A Vs aSae U u jd juam succumbed as a result ot of their ex kosure to the cold while the third Is n now ow a cripple being paralyzed in his right arm and side and unable to do any manual work A few years ago 48 sealers from one vessel were en to death on an ice fee floe indeed the whole business Is very risky and dangerous apart from the possibilities ot of the men being lost on the ice the steamers are liable to be crushed in the ice or to go down la in a gale during one hunt bunt the sealing steamer huntsman was crushed by the ice off the coast of labrador and oyer over men perished A few years ago two steamers the bloodhound and the retriever were also crushed in the ice and sank but crews numbering over men managed to reach battle harbor on the Labra labrador coast over the ice after enduring great hardships another steamer V 9 8 S greenland sealer seater nipped in ice and sunk the monticello also sank in consequence of injuries received from the ice but her crew were all saved they were picked up in a most deplorable condition by another vessel the men had subsisted tor for several days on raw seal meat As already stated the ships return as soon as a sufficient number of pelts has been obtained sometimes a ves sel is back in harbor again in a cou con pie of weeks laden to the gunwale with as many as 30 or 40 pelts the crew of a single vessel has been known to capture as many as 20 seals in seven or eight days the crew of the seal steamer neptune secured a season or two ago 42 seals in 18 days the pelts filling not only the hold but being piled upon the decks as well the watchers at the harbor know at once whether a vessel has been successful for it Is the custom to hang a broom aloft it if the catch has been a particularly good one sometimes however a steamer Is unlucky and after buffeting about amongst the ice for seven or eight weeks returns with enough skins to pa pay bare expenses the moment the cargo is landed the skinners go to work and separate the skins from the fat the former are salted and stored ready for export by means of steam driven machinery the fat Is cut up by revolving knives into minute pieces then ground finer by a sort ot of gigantic sausage machine aft erward steamed to extract the oil then exposed tor for a time in glass cov ered tanks to the action of the sun s rays and finally for exeor tation the annual catch of seals ranges usually from to and the annual value of this industry to newfoundland is over a million dollars 11 II J |
