Whaling Disaster of 1871

The Whaling Disaster of 1871 was an incident off the northern Alaskan coast in which a fleet of 33 American whaling ships were trapped in the Arctic ice in late 1871 and subsequently abandoned. It dealt a serious blow to the American whaling industry, already in decline.

The 1871 whaling season

In late June 1871, forty whalers passed north through Bering Strait, chasing bowhead whales.cite web |url=http://mysite.du.edu/~ttyler/ploughboy/starbuck.htm |title=HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY FROM ITS EARLIEST INCEPTION TO THE YEAR 1876 |author=Alexander Starbuck] By August the vessels had passed as far as Point Belcher, near Wainwright, Alaska, before a stationary high, parked over northeast Siberia, reversed the normal wind pattern and pushed the pack ice toward the Alaskan coast. Seven ships were able to escape to the south, but 33 others were trapped. Within two weeks the pack had tightened around the vessels, crushing four ships.cite web |url=http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/08-98/08-04-98/c01li066.htm |title=Study focuses on end of whaling for city |author=Paul Edward Parker] The vessels were spread out in a long line, some convert|60|mi|km south of Point Franklin. [cite web |url=http://www.marinearts.com/Pages/rfweisswhalingdisaster.htm |title=The Whaling Disaster of 1871]

By mid-September all 1,219 people aboard the ships evacuated in small whaleboats with a three-month supply of provisions, crossed convert|70|mi|km of ocean, and were eventually brought to safety by the seven ships which had escaped the ice to the south.cite web |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=R8bmQL-ijCMC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=whaling+%2B1871+%2Bice+%2Btrapped+%2Bcrushed+%2BAlaska&source=web&ots=5-HY2wHZxI&sig=uqvVX1HbVVnB221Al2jRzbU9s7g&hl=en |title=The Dictionary of Nautical Literacy |author=Robert McKenna] Amazingly, there were no casualties.

The seven whalers that escaped (the vessels "Europa", "Arctic", "Progress", "Lagoda", "Daniel Webster", "Midas", and "Chance") were forced to dump their catch and most of their equipment overboard to make room for passengers on the return trip to Honolulu. The total loss was valued at over $1,600,000. Twenty-two of the wrecked vessels were from New Bedford, Massachusetts.cite web |url=http://www.whalingmuseum.org/library/amwhale/am_arctic.html |title=Overview of American Whaling: Arctic Whaling] In 1872 the bark "Minerva" was discovered intact and subsequently salvaged,cite web |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=kNQ1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA403&lpg=PA403&dq=%22Bark+Roman%22&source=web&ots=2gH6w5dUQO&sig=JtzUnxAqmcdu8PNc7-8CNeyWR8Y&hl=en#PPA408,M1 |title=The Story of the New England Whalers |author=John Randolph Spears] but the rest were crushed in the ice, sank, or were stripped of wood by the local Inuit.

Lost whaling vessels

The lost vessels were as follows:

References