How One Nova Scotian Saved the Whales

When European settlers invaded the “new world”, among the wealth of natural resources they availed themselves of was a thriving ecosystem of marine life, inclusive of some of the largest mammals on the planet. All species of whale were hunted, including Baleen, Bowhead and Right Whales. In particular, the Sperm Whale became prized as a source of oil that was useful for hundreds of purposes, most notable as a fuel for lamps. A single Sperm Whale provided a harvest of several tons of oil, a rich and monetarily valuable commodity that fueled the exponential growth of the whaling industry from the seventeenth century onward. The early industrial revolution was lubricated with whale oil.

Atlantic fishers, notably from the Nantucket region of lyrical repute, set forth on increasingly long expeditions, lasting for months, even years at a time, in search of the largest aquatic creatures on the planet. They were completely successful. Floating factory ships captured, killed, rendered the animals' remains and stored the proceeds on board ships until they returned to port months later.

Being a worker in the whaling industry was far from a glamorous profession. As many as two thirds of the whaling crews deserted the ship. It was, by all accounts, a horrific profession. Young men and boys would row off from the main ship in crews of six as part of whaleboat crews that would approach the whales at short distance to harpoon them. The shocked and panicked animal would speed off in a desperate fight for survival, dragging the attached whale boat behind . This “Nantucket sleigh ride” intended to not kill the whale itself, but exhaust the creature until the whale boat crew were able to haul themselves to within a dozen feet of the spent animal and deliver the final blow with a 12 foot killing lance that would pierce the coiled arteries around the whales lungs.

The killing of the whale was only the beginning of the harvesting process. Particularly pernicious was the task of retrieving the valuable reservoir of oil contained in the head of the Sperm whale. The spermaceti oil could simply be ladled or collected into buckets by young whalers who would actually crawl inside the head of the dispatched whale as it floated alongside the whaler.

By 1760 the Nantucketers had virtually exterminated the local whale populations in the North Atlantic; but they had perfected the technology for processing the whale oil on the open ocean. By the advent of the American Revolution War Nantucket whalers has reached the extent of the Arctic Circle, western Africa and the Falkland Islands to the south. By the turn of the nineteenth century Nantucket whalers were set upon the Pacific Ocean and fully prepared to undertake the harvesting process in the Pacific that they had already completed in the Atlantic. Two and even three year voyages in the floating factories of the Nantucket whalers became commonplace.

1846 was the year of peak oil. The size and efficiency of the Nantucket whaling fleet resulted in a record harvest of whale oil and the near extermination of several species of whale from the world oceans. Whale oil was heavily used across the world to lubricate, illuminate and provide for the conveniences of modern life. The world ruminated about how to deal with the limits that would be forced as a result of the rapidly shrinking resource. Unknown to the world of 1846, the solution was just around the corner.

Abraham Gesner was a Canadian Physician and geologist born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. Abraham, like many Nova Scotians, pursued a career at sea and was shipwrecked twice in his early twenties. In 1824, he decided to begin a study in medicine in London England, later discovering an interest in geology. Following his studies, he returned to Nova Scotia to establish a medical practice, but continued his interest in geology and in particular a bituminous substance he named Albertite, that he discovered in Albert County, New Brunswick.

Gesner's research resulted in his invention of a process to refine a liquid fuel from the coal bitumen and oil shale. His discovery in 1846, kerosene, was a revolution, burned more cleanly than whale oil and was cheaper to manufacture. The latin words for rock – petram and oil – oleum combined to christen the new “petroleum” industry. In October 1850, chemist James Young patented a method of distilling various liquid fuels from petroleum seepages, including paraffin wax and kerosene. In 1850, Gesner started the Kerosene Gaslight Company in Halifax Nova Scotia, illuminating the streets of Halifax with his discovery. By 1854 he had expanded to New York city, supported by the shrinking cost of kerosene and the growth of oil refineries in the 1850’s and 60’s.

The price of whale oil collapsed. Worries about “peak oil” disappeared virtually overnight as kerosene replaced whale oil as a superior fuel and bitumen refining technologies became better, faster and cheaper. Gesner, a little known Nova Scotian entrepreneur, technologist and scientist, passed away in 1864, but his discovery of kerosene distilled from rock-oil no doubt saved whales from extinction, invented the fossil fuel industry, and saved the world of the 1800’s from an uncertain future without whale oil as a natural resource.