PLACE NAMES

Southland Times, Issue 21091, 24 May 1930, Page 13

PLACE NAMES

whaling unties

(By

Rambler)

Whaling in the very early days of New Zealand must have been a very crude business. Writers of fiction, who dealt with the adventures of the whaling ships of the South Seas, were plentiful enough at one stage of the history of literature, but as far as I have read I have not found any account of the operations of the shore whaling stations. The reason for the establishment of shore stations 'along the coast of New Zealand was probably'due to the desire to confine the messy operations of trying out the whale oil to the shore rather than to the decks of the whaling ship. The shore stations would also have great quantities of wood near at hand for the fires which had to be built under the try pots, and that woidd be a matter worthy of consideration, in spite of the fact that the try" pots on board the vessels were largely fueled with the “crack lings” or waste product of the blubber. A shore whaling station was established in the Waikawa River and the whalers, who established themselves there were able to go out along the coast in search of whales, to be towed back to the trying out station. Those were the days when the whale was first tethered to the whale boat by means of a harpoon and then prodded to death with a lance and the task could not have been a very easy one, but to my mind the task of the men on shore would be worse. Their station was established in a small bay near the mouth of the river, where the 1 North Head sheltered the fires from the . sea breezes and the high sandhills across the river could break the prevailing north west winds.

The try-pots were huge affairs shaped like the copper of an ordinary washing boiler, but they were without frames and had to be hung over huge open fires; The pots used on the whaling vessels were built in with bricks, but bricks were not sufficiently numerous to permit of that being done on shore and the only building-in the pots received was with loose stones. The task of the men engaged at the trying-out station can be imagined. They were required to gather wood to fire the pots and when a whale was brought in they had to set to work to flense it and then thts fires were lighted and the men sweated and struggled around the hot pots with the wind blowing the smoke into their eyes and the shelter of the hills keeping all the foul smells of the decaying' carcasses in their vicinity. The stripped carcasses of the whales were probably towed out to sea to be torn up by sharks, but they were evidently not towed very far, because whale bones were fairly plentiful along the banks of the river as late as 20 years ago. I remember seeing several rib bones up the river at Jack’s Bay, so I presume that .at least one carcass was washed up there by the tide.

The only other relie of the station which I have seen was one of the try-pots, which was in the possession of the late Mr W. York, and is probably still in. the possession of his son. The pot was a huge" unwieldy affair of cast iron and would be a very awk ward thing to handle when empty. I do not know how the oil was removed from the pots after the trying, but I should imagine that it must have been ladled off, and that operation would not be an easy one. There is one other relic of the old whaling station still at Waikawa and that is a name. The bay where the whalers sweated and toiled around’ their fires is still known as Try-pot Bay. There is nothing at the bay to indicate why it received its name, and there was nothing there when I first visited it over 20 years ago. The bush had been cut away from the shore and the North Head and White head beyond it were both covered with European grasses and stocked with sheep, cattle and horses. The whaling ships had gone from the coast and the whales had practically departed. An occasional one was seen at rare intervals and on one occasion about a dozen visited Porpoise Bay one evening, but I have not heard of any along that coast for some years. All that is left of the old whaling station is the name of the bay. We visited Try-pot Bay for picnics and for fishing. We could tie our flat-bottomed boat to the kelp in the river at the mouth of the bay and’fish from the sides of the boat. If we were lucky we caught blue cod and when we were not lucky we caught red cod and’ an occasional dog fish. There were times when all fish appeared to have deserted the river, and then we would sit in the boat and look at the bay and wonder what it had been like in the days when the whalers congregated there. The river rolled down to the sea between thickly wooded shores and the water was dark and bitter with the rotting vegetation, which drifted down from the thousands of trees whenever the south wind howled up the valley. To the north west the long"row of high sand hills, which guarded that side of the river, were gleaming red with the tough, razor edged, red grass growing there. Thin wisps of smoke curled up from fires'in the sandhills and the Maori maidens and wahincs tended the fires below, for the tribe, which had its village at the south end of the beach had been fishing for cockles in the river flats, and they were feasting before returning to thenhomes. A sailing ship lay in the river and the carcass of a whale was roped to the trees on the shore of the bay. Men were toiling at the carcass, cutting the blubber away in long strips, while others were carrying the strips up to the trees where the try-pots were hung over roaring fires. There the blubber was cut into smaller pieces and cast into the pots. Other men were working with axes amongst the trees and when they had cut down branches they carried them to the pots and chopped them up to feed the fires. The smoke blew into the faces of the workers and made their eyes smart and the tears flow. The smell of whale oil and of rotting meat was everywhere; along the shore, among the trees, in the rude whares built of sticks and ferns and old sails, and even in the cabins of the vessel on the river. Casks were stacked up on the shore and the captain and men counted the full ones and smiled when they saw that the cargo was nearly ready. The vessel would soon be loaded and they would sail away with their booty; back to their homes, to their wives, to their sweethearts, or to other pleasures not so chaste. The day came when the last of those hardy sailors sailed away, the last of the white sail vanished into the haze down the coast, and nothing remained but bleaching bones and discarded try-pots—and the name, Try-pot Bay. And settlers and sekers after gold followed after them and saw the pots and the bones, gathered the gold from the beach across the river, cleared the bush away, and tilled the land, and then passed away, with their white sails, white with the toil of years, disappearing into the mists of eternity. Their children remain to till the land, but the gold is all gone, the try-pots are gone, and even the bleached bones have crumbled away. Only the name remains— Try-pot Bay—and will remain until the children too shall pass away.