Early 1900s real photo postcard showing
a whaling station at Grays Harbor, Washington. One thing that
has struck me in getting together pictures and information for
this gallery is the strange subject matter that people used to consider
appropriate for postcards in the past - maybe even today I guess -
I'm not a collector. They are useful though as they last longer
than other pictures and are an excellent historical record.
Here humpback whales are awaiting processing at
an onshore whaling station in Washington state. They can
identified due to coloration and in particular for the long pale
flipper seen just below the water surface at the bottom of the
picture, no other whale has such relatively long flippers as the
Humpback.
They are so bloated as they have been pumped up
with air to keep them afloat after death and before being
processed. This practice was one of the techniques which made it
possible to start hunting the large baleen whales which tend to
sink once caught.
The downside of it is that introducing air (and
so oxygen) into the whale carcass means that bacteria in
particular from the gut can multiply all the faster and so
processing has to take place as soon as possible. If the whale was
left for too long like this before processing, the bacteria would
produce gas as they multiplied inside the dead whale eventually
causing the carcass to explode - most
unpleasant
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