Floating Households

Whaling steamers

Following the decline of the sealing industry, a commercial whaling fishery developed along the coasts of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. This new industry was dominated by the Pacific Whaling Company, incorporated in 1905 under the leadership of Capt. William Grant and Capt. Sprott Balcom, both of whom had previously been prominent figures in the Victoria-based sealing fleet.

Whaling steamers in the Upper Harbour, c. 1911. The photo was taken from Point Ellice Bridge.
Image courtesy of BC Archives, G-04283.

By 1911, the company operated an integrated system of whaling stations and vessels. Shore stations at Sechart in Barkley Sound, Kyuquot on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and at Rose Harbour and Naden Harbour on Haida Gwaii processed whale carcasses into oil, fertilizer, and other by-products. Later that year, the company was acquired by Canadian North Fisheries Limited, backed by the Canadian Northern Railway, though Grant and his partners retained operational control.

While Indigenous workers were employed at whaling stations, they were not engaged on the steamers. Otherwise, the commercial whaling fleet resembled the sealing fleet with respect to manpower, since whaler captains and crew members hailed from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Norway. Moreover, with few exceptions, the steamships in the whaling fleet were built in Norway.

A shipyard located in Christiana, Norway constructed the vessels that formed the Pacific Whaling Company's "colour" fleet. The ships, designated Black, Blue, Brown, Green, and White, were uniform in size, each measuring 96 feet (29 metres) in length, 18 feet (5.5 metres) in width, and possessing a draft of slightly over 11 feet (3.4 metres). Their maximum speed was approximately twelve knots.

Often referred to as whale catchers or chasers, these vessels formed the active arm of the industry. Nine of them were enumerated at the Pacific Whaling Company dock beside Point Ellice Bridge in the Upper Harbour. In order of visitation by the census-taker, the vessels were:

Orion (1904) - Capt. William O'Leary + 10 crew
William Grant (1910) - Capt. William Heater + 9 crew
Saint Lawrence (1903) - Capt. V. Anderson + 8 crew
White (1910) - Capt. Erling Gaystad + 9 crew
Black (1910) - Capt. Willis Balcom + 10 crew
Green (1910) - Capt. Samuel J. Balcom + 10 crew
Blue (1910) - Capt. Alred Olsen + 10 crew
Brown (1910) - Capt. Herrick Christopherson + 7 crew
Sebastian (1910) - Capt. John Mattison + 8 crew

Whaling steamer Brown at the Pacific Whaling Company dock.
Image courtesy of BC Archives, A-00921

The census also recorded an auxiliary vessel, the Petriana (1910), under Capt. Percy Shadforth, with a crew of 17 men. Built in Glasgow, this larger freighter transported personnel, equipment, and processed materials between Victoria and the remote whaling stations. Shortly after the census, the vessel was renamed Gray, aligning with the company’s colour-based naming system.

The whaling fleet represents a shift from the seasonal and declining practices of the sealing industry to a more industrialized and capital-intensive type of commercial fishery. The character of this new system can be seen more clearly by examining the crew of a single vessel, the Orion.

Researched and written by Patrick A. Dunae