Perils of Whaling. The Corwin Among the Whaling Fleet Off Point Barrow. Destruction of Whaling Ships by Ice-Esquimaux Wreckers. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Steamer Corwin, off Point Barrow, August 18, 1881.

Authors

John Muir

Files

Kimes Entry Number

129

Original Date

10-24-1881

William and Maymie Kimes Annotation

""The strip of water sometimes found between Icy Cape and Point Barrow is perhaps the most dangerous whaling ground yet discovered. The ice is of tremendous thickness, a hundred feet or more, and its movements are extremely variable .... "" Muir relates that since 1848, when the first whaling ship came into the area, ""no less than forty-seven have been crushed ... or pushed ashore, or embayed and swept away .... ""Following the first ship, ""the news, like a gold discovery, spread rapidly, and within the next three years two hundred and fifty ships had obtained cargoes .... This is, therefore, a comparitively new hunting ground, nevertheless it is being rapidly exhausted .... There are now twelve whale ships about Point Barrow in sight from the Corwin, and all that would be necessary to shut them in is a gale from the southwest. Still the great love of action, and the great love of money, compels the risk here and elsewhere over and over again.""

Publication

San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1881

Page/Column

p. 3, cols. 7-8

See also Kimes Entry Number

See also: no. 341, v. 7, pp. 200-[213]; no. 347, pp. 184-[196].

Recommended Citation

Muir, John, "Perils of Whaling. The Corwin Among the Whaling Fleet Off Point Barrow. Destruction of Whaling Ships by Ice-Esquimaux Wreckers. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Steamer Corwin, off Point Barrow, August 18, 1881." (1881). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 180.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/180