A WHALE OF A TALE

by Ben Robicheau ~ brobicheau@cogeco.ca

If you ever happen to find yourself in the Living Earth section of the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, be sure to look up, look way, way up. Suspended from the ceiling you will see the skeleton of a sixty-foot Fin Whale. You might wonder how this former Bay of Fundy denizen came to reside in a city so far from the sea.
During the 1970’s I worked at the Science Centre and in the summer of 1977, made the annual trek back east for my summer vacation. While I was home a whale washed up on Long Island, the first one to come ashore in several years. When I got back to Toronto I casually mentioned this to one of the Science Centre staff who excitedly informed me that they were looking for a whale skeleton to exhibit. I immediately phoned my father only to learn that the whale in question had drifted out to sea again. I asked him to let me know if another whale happened to come ashore, assuming it might be years before another one turned up.
Two weeks later my father called to say that he had a whale for me if I was still interested. Dr. Peter Beamish, a biologist with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, had a sideline of running nature treks for kids and while camping near Pond Cove had come across a dead Fin whale on the east side of Point D’ Field. While Peter and his group secured the whale so that this one wouldn’t escape, I went to see how serious the Science Centre really was about this whole whale thing.
It turned out they were very serious. Twenty-four hours later I was on a plane to Nova Scotia accompanied by Lorraine Dumoulin. Lorraine had dissected frogs while earning her biology degree, so was the closest thing the Science Centre had to an expert on whale skinning. Although I had estimated it would take at least a couple of weeks to do the job, we were given one week to complete our project. Arriving in Halifax, we went to see Dr. Beamish for advice on the easiest and fastest way to extract the skeleton from a whale. Peter had an extensive interest in whales and had spent years studying the whaling industry, acquiring information and equipment from the many whale-processing stations that used to exist along the Atlantic coast. One of the artefacts he had was a flensing knife, which looked a bit like a hockey stick, with a long wooden handle and a dangerous looking curved eighteen-inch metal blade. This was the main tool used by whalers to cut through the thick layers of blubber and in his opinion our job would be nearly impossible without it. Since his knife was both an antique and a collector’s item, he recommended a “metal artist” in Bear River who could build us a couple of new ones.
Arriving in Westport armed with two surprisingly accurate replicas of the whale skinners basic tool, we added to our arsenal with two splitting knives, a bucksaw and a couple of the biggest carving knives we could find. We also added to our group Greg Hannah, a New York artist who spends summers on the island, my sister Janet, and a fellow whose name I can’t recall, I believe he was a friend of Greg’s. We gathered our gear and crew and headed down Pond Cove Road to see what exactly we had gotten ourselves into.
The whale, a sixty-foot mass of black and white blubber with a gaping hole in the middle where sharks had been ripping at it, nearly filled the small cove. Cutting away all those tons of flesh and pulling out the ribs, vertebrae, jaw bones, skull and numerous other smaller bones seemed like an impossible task, especially since none of us really had any idea what we were doing. By the second day, guided by a book on whale biology that Lorraine had luckily thought to bring along, we were beginning to make some headway when Greg’s friend cut through his rubber boot with one of the razor-sharp flensing knives and sliced his little toe nearly off. Janet took him over to Dr. Stokes in Freeport, who unfortunately was out of anaesthetic to freeze the wound, so instead gave him a rolled up towel to bite on while he stitched it up.
According to fishermen on the island, the carcass had been drifting around for nearly a month, possibly the victim of a collision with a large ship. By the time it reached shore it was starting to decompose, and lying on the beach in the August sun sped up the process considerably. By the time we got to it the smell was noticeable but bearable. As the week went on and disassembly of the creature advanced, the odour grew gradually worse, but because we were around it all day we adjusted to the smell and didn’t realise how bad it was getting. We did notice that the group that came down to observe and take pictures stood farther and farther back as each day passed. How ripe we were getting was really brought home to us at noon on the third day when we went to the store to get some lunch. Dad met us at the door with a can of air freshener in his hand and told us to stay outside, he’d bring our lunch out to us. Janet says she remembers Dubie Frost stopping to discuss the whale but backing up further and further as he talked to us.
Aside from the toe episode things were going surprisingly well, every time the tide came up it covered the whale and carried away most of the slabs of blubber we had cut off. We were able to pull some ribs out of the damaged midsection and were gradually building up a stockpile of bits and pieces above the high-water mark. We built skids out of driftwood and used my brother-in-law Don’s four-wheel-drive truck to haul some of the larger sections up the beach as we separated them from the carcass. By the end of the week, just as the smell was finally getting too much for even us to bear, we were relieved and as amazed as everyone else to see that we had actually succeeded in collecting a pile of bones that comprised a complete whale skeleton. We had everything from the fifteen foot jaw bones to the nickel-sized ear bones that we had managed to dig out of the massive skull, missing only a couple of ribs that had been lost due to shark damage. Now all we had to do was get this decaying, smelly mess to Toronto.
The man for the job was Danny Kenny. He had to build an extension onto one of his trucks to fit everything on, but he managed to get it all loaded, packed in hay and covered with a tarp, and on its way to Toronto. He decided to take the U.S. route to Ontario and here his extensive experience in travelling back and forth across the border came in handy. Somehow, he was able to cross into the States with a minimum of trouble and then back out again carrying a stinking, dripping load of whalebones and decaying blubber. Arriving in Toronto the evening before he was to deliver his load, he decided to spend the night at his sister’s house. She lived in a nice neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city and while happy to see her brother, for some reason she wasn’t thrilled about having his truck and its fragrant load parked in her driveway. Danny had to go find a gas station that was willing to let him park his truck overnight, I think he even had to pay them to take it.
Now that we had the whale what did we do with it? There was still meat attached to many of the bones, so we unloaded them straight from the truck and buried them in the ground. The theory was that bugs in the soil would clean the flesh from the bones. Two years later we dug them up and dropped them into Lake Ontario. Whale bones are full of oil which will continue to ooze out for years, to get rid of the oil you submerge the bones and the water pressure forces the oil out. After a couple of years in the lake, and many jokes about whales in Lake Ontario, the bones were finally brought to the Science Centre where they spent another year on the roof, drying and bleaching in the sun. Finally they were steam-cleaned and prepared for assembly.
By the spring of 1984 the public finally got to see the bones on display. They were spread out in the Great Hall, part of the main entrance to the Science Centre, where they were carefully sorted and assembled by an expert who usually reconstructs dinosaur skeletons. Over the next few months thousands of visitors got to see the Bay of Fundy behemoth take shape. Upon it’s completion, it was carefully moved to the Living Earth section and hung from the ceiling, finally ending its long journey from the sea. Now, many years and many miles from the Fundy shores, it is one of the Science Centre’s most popular exhibits, impressing and educating thousands of school children every year. - brobicheau@cogeco.ca

ROAD WORK

Ben Robicheau

Spring is on the way and with it comes the annual road closures, frost heaves, broken pavement and potholes. As annoying as it might be to have your front wheel dropping unexpectedly into a crater that just appeared overnight, the roads are still better than they were before pavement brought the Islands into the age of modern transportation. Fifty years ago a simple trip up the Island could be an ordeal for both man and machine.
Driving challenges changed with the seasons. In winter there were the frozen ruts to contend with. It was not unusual for the roads to thaw for several days in mid-winter, allowing axle-deep ruts to form, these would then freeze solid, forming a spider web of intersecting tire tracks. A driver trying to negotiate his way through this icy maze would pick the most likely looking ruts to follow. It was important to choose the correct set of grooves because once committed to a certain set of ruts it was often difficult, if not impossible, to get out of them again. Occasionally you would be steered in a direction you didn’t necessarily want to go, like into the ditch. Sometimes the ruts would diverge causing your front wheels to try to go in opposite directions and your car to shimmy frantically from side to side as if trying to decide which wheel to follow, this was not exactly great for your wheel alignment.
In the springtime all cars became the same shade of mud brown as warmer weather brought large murky puddles that looked like they could be home to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. There were also several “soft spots” that year after year ate up truckloads of gravel but never seemed to get any firmer. Drivers would zig-zag back and forth across the road trying to pick a fairly solid route that could get them through to the other side without sinking up to the rocker panels.
Summertime brought drier roads but drier roads also brought dust and flying stones. Nearly every vehicle had a broken headlight, cracked windshield or occasionally even a punctured radiator from rocks thrown by passing traffic. If the weather was dry cars were followed by swirling clouds of dust which covered every surface and every passenger in a gritty film. If it was wet the roads were greasy and your windshield was periodically covered in a muddy spray thrown up by other cars.
The Dept. of Highways did most of its improvements in summer, but by fall the roadwork would begin to deteriorate again and multiple potholes would develop, making it feel like you were driving over a washboard.
Dirt roads require a lot of maintenance and each island had its own roadmaster. For many years the roads of Westport were attended to by Brad Delaney. His main piece of equipment was a Caterpillar tractor. This was basically a bulldozer which had a powerful diesel engine and ran on steel treads, in the winter a snow plow could be attached to the front, the rest of the year it towed various pieces of road maintenance equipment. To a young boy the most interesting piece of machinery, next to the tractor itself, was the grader. This was a complicated looking long, gangly rig, with a scraping blade in the middle, two wheels in the front, two tall wheels in the back and a platform at the very back where an operator would stand. The operator was kept busy turning several adjusting wheels, manipulating a row of levers and fine tuning the blade as the grader was towed along by the tractor. For some reason the rear wheels could be leaned over to the right or left which made it look like it was crabbing sideways as it rolled down the road.
The grader was only brought out after the roads had reached a certain level of decrepitude, so it was kind of exciting to see bumpy, potholed dirt roads transformed into nice smooth, gravelled streets. One day after lunch Chester Lent and I were on our way back to school when we stopped to watch the grader at work. We found the fresh new gravel and the way the blade made a neat little row of dirt in the middle of the road so fascinating that we decided to follow it for a while, we were in no hurry, afternoon classes wouldn’t start for a while yet. We trailed it down the back road and up the front, mesmerised by our own footprints in the soft, freshly turned gravel. When we rolled past the schoolhouse, the operator turned around and told us it was time to stop following him and go to school. We decided he was probably right, afternoon classes were likely ready to start by now. When we presented ourselves at the door we were surprised to see that school had already begun. We explained to Mrs. Garron that we were late because we had been following the grader. She just sighed and said that we might as well come in and take our seats. Assuming we were only a few minutes late we sat down and were just getting out our books when the bell rang. School was over for the day! We had spent the whole afternoon transfixed by the operations of the road grader.
A couple of times a summer, usually right after the roads had been graded, a tanker tuck would arrive on the island and spray the roads in an attempt to keep the dust down. We didn’t think much of it at the time, but they were spraying hundreds of gallons of used oil on the road. Years later it turned out that there was a good possibility that the chemical cocktail they used included transformer oil, or PCBs, now considered a hazardous material. A small spill of this product today is treated as an environmental and human health disaster and is handled by specially equipped biohazard teams.
For many years Brad’s Caterpillar tractor was the most powerful machine on the Island. If you needed a piece of equipment moved, a snowdrift pushed aside or a car pulled out of the ditch, Brad’s tractor could do it. It was a very rare situation that couldn’t be resolved with the brute strength of that diesel engine. I happened to witness one of those rare occasions when Brad and his machine were forced to give way to an older technology.
In those days a few of the local fishermen would haul their boats up onto the safety of dry land for the winter. One fall day I was watching a group of men struggle to get one of these boats up the beach. They were positioned on either side of the hull, balancing it on its keel while Brad and his tractor pulled from the bow. Unfortunately, things were not going well, the beach was fairly steep at this spot and it was covered with flat stones. The steel tractor treads were slipping and spinning and the boat was not budging. This futile struggle had been going on for some time and the tired and frustrated men were shouting helpful, and some not so helpful, suggestions at Brad who was constantly jogging back and forth and left and right, trying to get some traction.
While all this was going on, Gerald Morrell happened along with his team of oxen. He stopped to see what all the commotion was about and some of the men suggested that he be given a chance to see if his animals could do any better. Brad was sceptical, if his machine couldn’t move this boat, then no animal was going to be able to. After a few more unproductive attempts, he reluctantly unhitched his tractor and the oxen were hooked up in its place.
Watching these huge animals, it was apparent that they knew exactly what their job was. Once they were attached to the boat, you could see them lean into the yoke, getting a sense of the load they were being asked to pull. They shuffled around, looking for solid footing among the beach rocks. Gerald patiently stood and waited for his team to get ready, then he just spoke a command and flicked their rumps with his whip. As a couple of thousand pounds of oxen put their weight into the job, you could hear the creaking and straining of the leather yoke straps and the grinding of the beach stones under their hooves, but the boat didn’t move. Brad was just starting to say, “I told you so”, when the pair repositioned themselves, lowered their heads, and then lunged ahead, pulling the boat with them. One step, then another, and then straight up the beach, across the road and into the field. Amid the cheering of the relieved group, Gerald just smiled, unhitched his team and continued on his way. – brobicheau@cogeco.ca