July 9, 2009
Red Bay, Labrador
Down North . . . huh? Isn’t North up? Geographically speaking for people in the northern hemisphere it’s up, but for sailors it’s down. Downwind that is. Prevailing winds are from the southwest so heading up the coast you’ll be sailing with the wind behind you . . . downwind!
The crossing was a breeze and w were actually sailing a bit. Russ napped and I prepared fish chowder with the cod given us by the Freida M. Chop onions. Look for bergy bits. Chop celery. Look for bergy bits. Chop potatoes. Look for bergy bits.
My love of history probably comes from trooping around old forts and battlegrounds with my family as a kid so you’re going to get a dose of it here.
History oozes from the reddish rocks surrounding Red Bay, our first Labradorian landfall. Andante sailed by them just like the Basques fisherman had over 400 years ago. This was a much busier port then than it is now. Between 1540 and 1610, Basque whaling activities made Red Bay the busiest whaling port in the world. It’s a quiet place now and hard to imagine the harbor filled with thirty Basque galleons and over 2000 men working and living here.
They came for the right whales that migrated up the Straits of Belle Isle, the natural constriction funneleing the whales to the harpoonists’ Shoreside operations rendered the whale oil, made barrels to hold it, and prepared it for shipping in the fall when the whole operation packed up and returned home.
A storm swept through the harbor in the fall of 1565 and The San Juan, almost fully loaded with barrels of whale oil for the return voyage, was driven on the rocks and sank. All of the crew made it to shore and the ensuing lawsuits enabled modern researchers to learn of the sinking and begin searching. Exactly 400 years later, she was discovered on the harbor bottom, laid open and flattened by time and ice like a cod filleted and laid open for salting. Through painstaking archeological work she was mapped, catalogued, and raised piece by piece. Models were made of each piece and the originals were placed back on the harbor floor for preservation.
The exhibits do a great job giving a taste of what life was like for a Basque sailor of that era. Laden with supplies including pre-fab wooden barrels, the Basque galleons left in the early spring. Sometimes arriving in these waters to find ice holding firm to the land, they set up operations. Whales were dragged as close to land as possible where blubber boiled in large tryworks. Barrels were assembled close by the men protected from the elements by roofs made of red tiles from home.
At 5 ft. 6” and 145 pounds on average, they were a short, muscular group of men. No evidence of women has been found. They worked hard, long days falling into exhausted sleep aboard their ships. Accidents claimed lives and at least one winter, 1576-1577, men were left. It was a hard winter and when the galleons returned in the spring, many had died. The first known will written in the new world was written that spring. Juan Martinez de Larrume dictated his last will and testament. Some interesting pieces:
-14 items, the vast majority of references in the will, were related to church donations to cover low and high masses
-money was ear marked to cover a hospital debt
-money was also paid to cover a debt he owed for a cask of whale oil-turns out he’d bought the whale oil for a friend who now owed him for it. “I declare that the caulker owes me four reales. I ask that they be collected.”
Roots of instruments we use today were found in the wreckage; a compass and hourglass to measure time and parts of an astrolabe (an early sextant) speak to the navigator’s art.
A not so welcome passenger to the new world was a rat. His skeleton, found in the San Juan’s wreckage, marks the first dateable evidence of this invasive species to the new world.
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