Red Bay Basque Whaling Station

• Official Name: Red Bay Basque Whaling Station
• Location: Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
• Type: Cultural
• Year of Inscription: 2013

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station is an archeological site in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, that represents the earliest and best-preserved evidence of European whaling life and practices. The whaling station, which was founded in the 1530s, was a major source of whale oil that lit European homes for more than seven decades. The site is in northeastern Canada on the shores of the Strait of Belle Isle, off Labrador’s southern coast.

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station contains the ruins of many aspects of the whaling trade and the Basque people who pursued it. These ruins are found both on land and in the bay’s waters. They include wharves where ships were launched and anchored, lookouts for whale watching, ovens used to render the whale fat for use as lamp fuel, cooperages where barrels and casks were made to transport the rendered fat, living quarters for the whalers, a cemetery, a whale bone depository, and underwater wreckage and remains of ships. Since most of these ruins were excavated and then covered over to protect them, the Red Bay site includes an interpretative center and select relics to help visitors study and understand sixteenth-century whaling.

Red Bay Basque Whaling Station is the most complete and oldest site that preserves the European whale trade that flourished along the coastline of North America. It provides a glimpse into a way of life in a time very different from anything experienced by those living in the twenty-first century. As a result, the site has been preserved as a National Historic Site by the Canadian Government since 1979. In 2013, it was inscribed as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

History

Named after the red granite cliffs found there, the area known as the Red Bay Basque Whaling Station started in the 1530s when Basque whalers first came to the area. Basques are people from an area between modern Spain and France near the Pyrenees Mountains and the Bay of Biscay. They ventured beyond their small homeland for centuries for economic, political, and social reasons. As far back as the eleventh century, Basques were engaged in shipbuilding, sailing, exploration, missionary ventures, and whaling, sailing to both South and North America in these pursuits.

Basque fishers following schools of cod found the Red Bay area in the 1520s and by the 1530s had set up camp, mostly in the summer months, in an area off the Labrador coast they called Balea Baya, or Whale Bay. Hunting whales was a lucrative but dangerous profession at the time. Whale meat was a popular food source, while whale blubber (fat) was rendered, or cooked down, to make oil used for lamps in Europe and in European colonies. Whale oil burned brighter than many other oils commonly used at the time. Whale oil was also used as a leather lubricant and an additive in soap, paints, and varnishes. Whalers also harvested baleen, a flexible material made of keratin (like human nails), that was part of the system the animal used to filter its food. Baleen could be used much like modern fiberglass-reinforced plastic and is found in ancient bows, helmets, and other objects.

The Basque whalers of Red Bay preferred North Atlantic right whales. This species was so named because it was the “right” whale to hunt; it is a slow swimmer that travels in groups called pods, increasing its chances of being caught. It also floated when it was killed, making it easier for whalers to retrieve and harvest its remains. While the right whale was a preferred target of the Red Bay whalers, they frequently hunted bowhead whales, which also floated when dead. Whale bones found at the site indicate that a great many bowhead whales were killed there, possibly because the right whale was already becoming scarce at the time.

The whalers established summer settlements in the area, which were fully equipped for housing the whalers, repairing their ships, rendering the oil, and packaging it for transport back to Europe. When they arrived, they built ovens and facilities known as tryworks that held the copper kettles used to render the blubber into oil, along with cooperages to build barrels and casks for transport. The settlements also had a cemetery for those who died from illness or accident and an area where they disposed of all the parts of the whale carcasses they could not use.

To hunt the whales, lookouts on towers on the shore watched for the animals. Once they were spotted, the whalers launched boats called chalupas to pursue them. Whalers on the chalupas harpooned the whales, then removed the blubber for transport to shore for rendering. Historians estimate that in the approximately seventy years between the arrival of the Basque whalers and when they abandoned the Red Bay area in the late 1500 or early 1600s, more than twenty thousand whales were harvested. The whaler’s success, coupled with a change in the whales’ migration patterns, depleted the whale population so that the area was no longer profitable for hunting.

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station remained abandoned and forgotten for centuries until some scholars studying Basque history found records in Spain that brought the Basque journeys to eastern Canada into the light. Selma Huxley Barkham (1927–2020) worked for Canada’s National Historic Sites organization when interest arose in the Basque history in Canada. Remembering a trip to Basque with her late husband, Brian, Barkham learned Spanish before moving to Spain.

While teaching English to support her young family, Barkham spent her spare time studying ancient Basque records. She found reports and logs of voyages to Terra Nova, as the ancient Basques called Canada. Gradually, she pieced together enough information to identify the area now known as Red Bay, where a large Basque whaling village had thrived. In 1977, Barkham brought her family back to Canada to search for signs of this village and others. Her research uncovered the best-preserved evidence of sixteenth-century Europe whaling found to that time.

The area was studied, revealing harpoons and other implements left behind, as well as the remains of structures. In the water of the bay, researchers found the remains of four Basque galleons as well as the smaller chalupas used in the hunt. In 1979, the area was declared a Canadian National Historic Site. In 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Significance

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station is a well-preserved archeological site that provides an important look back into the early history of the Basque people in the New World. It also provides an opportunity to study the life and work of European whalers in what is the first known large-scale whale oil production site anywhere in the world. Whaling and the products that resulted from it were a key part of the European economy and everyday life from at least the eleventh through the nineteenth century.

The Red Bay station saw the arrival of more than six hundred men on fifteen to thirty ships. Experts estimate that at its height, more than a thousand men and boys may have journeyed there to hunt and process whales. With more than 140 buried bodies, the cemetery gives testament to the danger they faced. Some graves include more than one set of remains, an indication that whaling accidents sometimes claimed multiple victims.

In addition to human and animal remains, the site includes several shipwrecks just off the shore. One of these is the San Juan de Pasajes, a Basque galleon that sank during a storm in December 1565. The ship went down with more than one thousand barrels of oil, each containing 225 liters, or almost sixty gallons. The wreckage of the San Juan also revealed many details of how the galleons were constructed and the origins of the parts used to construct the casks and barrels. Tools used for whaling and to repair and sail the ship, including navigation equipment, were also discovered, along with a chalupa that was beneath the partially intact hull of the San Juan. Studying these reminders of how the Basque whalers traveled, lived, and died provides researchers with important historical information about an occupation and time of the past.

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station has mostly been reburied to protect it. However, an interpretative center and relics preserved on the site allow visitors to see what life was like for the sixteenth-century Basque whalers. Visitors can compare the size of a chalupa to the size of the whale bones found on the site to get a sense of the enormity and danger of whale hunting.

Bibliography

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“Basque Whaling in Red Bay, Labrador.” Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/basque-whaling-red-bay.php. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

Gwuiazda, Emily. "Selma Barkham." Canadian Encyclopedia, 6 May 2022, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/selma-barkham. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

Loewen, Brad, and James A. Tuck. “Red Bay Archeological Site.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 11 Aug. 2021, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/red-bay-archaeological-site. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

“Red Bay.” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, www.cbc.ca/nl/features/redbay. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

“Red Bay Basque Whaling Station.” Fathom Studio, fathomstudio.ca/our-work/red-bay-basque-whaling-staton. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

“Red Bay Basque Whaling Station.” Government of Canada, 19 Sept. 2023, parks.canada.ca/culture/spm-whs/sites-canada/sec02q. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

“Red Bay Basque Whaling Station.” UNESCO World Heritage Convention, whc.unesco.org/en/list/1412. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.

“Who Are the Basques?” Basque Museum and Cultural Center, basquemuseum.eus/visit/who-are-the-basques. Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.