Basque whalers in the 1500s travelled to the very edge of their known universe in search of their gargantuan prey, and landed on the shores of a fog-shrouded bay in Labrador. In this unlikely setting, Canadiana revels in one of Canada's most absurd true crime stories: the tale of a Basque who stole from their rival, sparking a Spanish Supreme Court case that wouldn't be settled for nearly 20 years.
Canadian & Spanish history collides in a tale that was forgotten for centuries…
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Corrections/clarifications:
*There is a glaring mispronunciation in the episode that somehow slipped through months and months of pre and post-production. "Thule" is pronounced "Too-lee" or "Too-lay." We apologize profusely for this embarrassing error, and have no excuse for it.
*In the sequence of whale oil products, we listed candles, soap and paint. Sorry! This was an ERROR — one that we had actually corrected in the episode script, but on site we mistakenly recorded off the WRONG printed version! Whale oil was primarily used for machine lubrication. We didn't notice while editing, until we recently went to edit the French version of this episode (coming soon), which had been recorded on-site with the CORRECTED version: “manufacturing cloth and soap.”
*In the episode, we acknowledge that the Thule ancestors of the Inuit had been hunting sustainably for thousands of years before the Basques arrived. To say thousands is incorrect, as the ancestors of the present-day Inuit arrived in the Arctic roughly 500 years before, around 1050 CE. Newfoundland & Labrador were home to the Inuit, Innu, Mi’kmaq and Beothuk people long before the Basques arrived to hunt whales, but the Basques would have had minimal interaction with those inland and on the island of what is now known as Newfoundland.
*The demand for baleen/whalebone really only took off from the late 1500s; before then, the Basques were primarily returning to Europe with whale oil.
*Please note that “Torre” may be mispronounced (should be “t-OH-r-eh”)
16th Century Whaling:
Whaling in the 1500s was not for the faint of heart. As you see in this episode’s miniature recreations, whale hunters went out in crews of 7-8 men in mere row boats, called chalupas, which were only about 28 feet long. Once they managed to harpoon a whale, they would be dragged behind it with the rope attached, until the whale tired itself out. When it eventually succumbed to its injuries, the crew needed to row and tow an enormous whale back to their base (sometimes this required two chalupas in a train). It’s worth mentioning the captains may not have been on board the chalupas (though we’ve put them there for storytelling purposes).
Bowhead Whale Facts:
Bowhead whales have the largest mouth of any animal!
Were once considered the same as a Right Whale, but are now a distinct species
Were one of the earliest whaling targets, but a moratorium was passed to protect bowhead whales in 1996
Miniatures:
A SPECIAL THANKS to Ashley’s father, Mark Brook, who volunteered to design and build the miniature sets used to recreate the tale of the stolen whale!
Dr. Selma Barkham:
We mention this in the episode, but would like to reiterate: this story exists thanks to the intrepid Dr. Selma Barkham, a Canadian historian who unravelled the history of whaling in 16th century Labrador during the 1970s. Dr. Barkham was a widowed mother of four who taught herself Spanish before combing through Spanish archives for documents, including court records, in order to piece together this little-known part of Canadian history. Thanks to Barkham’s research, archeologists began to uncover artefacts in Red Bay in the 70s and 80s, and it is now a National Historic Site administered by Parks Canada!
Research Consultant:
A huge thank you to the incredibly helpful Dr. Michael Barkham, son of the late Dr. Selma Barkham, whom we interviewed for the hard-to-find details of this story!
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DESCRIBED VIDEO VERSION: https://vimeo.com/950814260/cd128ce84...
00:00 Intro
01:32 History of Basques & Labrador
03:57 Whaling History
05:58 Bowhead Whales + The Hunt
07:26 The Robbery
08:07 The Court Case
09:21 The End of Whaling
10:19 Dr. Selma Barkham
11:05 Bonus Story
#history #canadianhistory #miniatures #whaling
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