TOURISM: “There she blows – Cameras Ready!”

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

KAIKOURA, New Zealand, Apr 7 1998 (IPS) - The group aboard the small boat, eyes tired from peering endlessly at the empty ocean, slumped disappointedly in their seats.

Suddenly, an exicted cry of “there she blows!” erupted from the lookout. There, just in front of the ship, the shiny, ebony tail of a whale soars into view – staying just long enough for dozens of camers to click like a horde of locusts, before disappearing into the water,

“That was Drippy Flukes,” said the skipper. “I recognised his tail.”

Drippy is a teenaged bachelor whale, whose young body is already 20 metres long. “He has been around for months, but let’s see if we can spot some of his friends,” grinned the captain as the tiny boat moved off to catch sight of more whales.

Kaikoura, on the north-east coast of the South Island, is an area steeped in Maori history and legend. It was one of the first and most important shore whaling villages in New Zealand from the 1840s right up until the 1920s. Today, people still come here to hunt whales, but with cameras and not harpoons.

The waters off the coast of Kaikoura are abundant with wildlife like the acrobatic dusky dolphins, New Zealand fur seals and beautiful royal albatross. They also are home to the sperm whale or cachalot with its gigantic head and fearsome jaws.

Nowadays, Kaikoura is the only place in the world where people can have the ultimate experience of watching the giant sperm whale all year round. Before they were Kaikoura’s prime tourist attraction, the sperm whales were the reason why many European visitors settled in New Zealand.

When famed british explorer James Cook visited the islands aboard the Resolution in 1773, he noted the natural riches about the coast. Less than 20 years later, ships began to visit New Zealand’s shores in search of timber, flax, seals and whales.

The sealers nearly exterminated their prey and by the time New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, most of the seals that frequented its coastline had died. The whalers, working from their whaling ships or from shore bases, were still catching prey in the middle of this century.

Fyffe House in Kaikoura, the oldest surviving building in the village, was built by a shore whaler, George Fyffe, about 1860. It was one of the most flourishing shore whaling stations that sprang up along the east coast in the mid-19th century. Fyffe’s link to Kaikoura’s whaling past is still visible — the house stands on rare whale bone foundations.

“It was a rugged and dangerous life,” says Billy Edwards, the house curator, looking across the sea to the beautiful Seaward Kaikoura mountains. “Everything you couldn’t produce by yourself came in little coastal ships and the shore was frequently battered by forceful storms.”

Although many shore stations were set up on beautiful beaches and bays, the nature of the industry often made them unattractive to outsiders. The camps often smelled strongly of whale oil, flesh and spent blubber. Some missionaries viewed the shore stations as places of evil and immorality.

At the time, Wesleyan missionary John Bumby accused the whalers at one station of practising “every species of iniquity without restraint and without concealment”. He had written: “The very soil is polluted.”

Other contemporary observers noted however that when engaged in the business of whaling, the whalers were hard-working and disciplined. “Though prone to drunkenness and its attendant evils, the whaler is hospitable in the extreme, and his rough- built house is a model of cleanliness and order,” wrote Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1820-1879) in his book ‘Adventures in New Zealand’.

The shore whalers used techniques similar to ocean whalers in hunting and killing their prey. Once a whale was spotted from a shore look-out, whaleboats were launched from the beach and the chase was on. When the whale was struck with harpoons and began to tire, the boat was brought close to the whale and the harpooner prepared for the mortal blow.

After the carcass was brought to the beach, the blubber was cut off in chunks from the whale’s tongue, heart and intestines and oil extracted from the blubber by boiling in iron trypots. In the days when mineral oil and fossil fuels were practically unknown, whale oil was in high demand for lighting and heating.

Spermaceti oil taken from the sperm whale’s head was even more highly valued — it made the best candles, which burnt with a smokeless flame. Another useful whale product was the flexible baleens from the mouths of some whales, which served to stiffen the corsets that women wore at the height of Victorian fashion.

The meat of the whale was usually wasted, as few liked its taste, and it was left on the bones for sharks to feed on.

The whalers’ tough and adventurous life has become part of Kaikoura’s history. Since the whaling days of the 19th century, the village has grown from a whaling station to a farming and fishing community and port, and then on to today’s whale watching centre. Last year alone, a total of 197,180 people visited it to experience its unique wildlife.

The world’s recognition did not come immediately, though. Ten years ago, before the people of Kaikoura realised the golden opportunity in their marine environment, the village was grim, depressed and had many unemployed people. These days, the whale- watching and tourism industry has become a source of income for many.

On a sunny day, the village displays a charming esplanade of coffee shops and restaurants, where tourists stare dreamily at Kaikoura’s breathtaking sea scenery amid exotic cocktails and crayfish dishes.

“I think it is one of the most beautiful places in the world where mountains meet the sea,” says the owner of the ‘Green Dolphin’, a restaurant near the former whaling station. “But, without the whale-watching experience, few would have come to admire it.”