Shipbucket

Hello guys, a I need a small help from norwegian members.

I'm a master degree student and, in january, I'm going to Norway in a exchange program 'til june at the UiT. Besides this being already something really big and great, this is even more important to me because my thesis is about whaling. This being said, now a need some help.

I need to know what are the most important whaling ports today? I want to try to interview some whalers and I wasn't able to found any reliable tip about this. What I already found is based on unreliable data acquired via concentration of photos on Shipspoting.com and trying to track down the ships on MarineTraffic, without very much success.

Thanks!
Danilo

It's quite hard to find anything on whaling in Norway "it's easier to find a girlfriend on the North-pole!"

Joke aside.

Whaling in Norway is extremely low, around 10 ships (it was registrated 10 ships in 2019). Island used to have whale boats in their piers, occasionally but it's rare. They are close to Impossible to find now in Norway. Heck you are lucky if you manage to find whale meat in any food store in Norway, in my 34 years, I have only seen 1 whale boat and 4 boxes with whale meat in food stores and I have lived everywhere from Northern Norway, to the south Norway. Even for me as an Norwegian have no idea where they are, but they are most likely in Northern part of Norway. (if you are extremely lucky, a whale boat might come in to Alta)

Most whaling boats have been rebuild into normal fishing vessel

But check library, museums, etc. they will have a lot of information. for example the maritime museum in Bergen have a library, then there is the fishing museum in Bergen as well.

Museum ship "Southern Actor" (the only whale catcher from the modern whaling epoch":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Actor

Map of old whaling station in Norway, the closest for you in Alta is old whaling station on "Sørøya" (Bøle/Skarsfjord/Akkarfjord) and Rolvsøya" (Trollfjord/Mafjord) about 75-115 km away on two different islands (øy/øya = Island):
https://larship.no/10315-2/

NOAH might know something, NOAH is working for animal rights and they are trying to stop whale hunting in Norway (or whats left of it) (it's in Norwegian, but right click on the screen and chose translate Chrome) or past the link into "translate.google"). I am not going to argue how is right or not, when it comes to NOAH, but NOAH love to try to say something else, when they are given facts. NOAH read that the government give permission for hunting 1278 ton of whale, but they do not relize that whale boats in Norway have only been fishing less then half of that!:
https://www.dyrsrettigheter.no/havet/hj ... 1cQAvD_BwE

Museum Vest, various maritime museums in and around Bergen (west coast of Norway):
https://www.museumvest.no/english/
https://fiskerimuseum.museumvest.no/english/

Whalers in Norway usually only manage to catch less then half of what they are allowed to fish by the government. For example in 2019, they could hunt 1278 tons, but they only managed to get 429 tons.

during this year whale season, there was registrated 16 whale boats. They had permission to hunt for 916 whales. I don't think they manage that, they never have!
One og the whaling boats that are still in use today, is "Kato" (IMO: 6929985), it's owned by "Fiskebåtrederiet Kato AS" (Fishing boat shipping company Kato AS) that have existed since 1912.

From 1984, blasting harpoons with pentrite were introduced. These were developed at the initiative of the Norwegian authorities. At the same time, the cold harpoon was banned. They blasting harpoons made sure that the whale dies faster. There have been some studies that suggest that the whale dies faster then how they have been counting it up to now. From shot until it sinks, but some studies done by veterinarians, shows that they dies almost instantly, and any movement after is just muscle cramps.

But you know all that, and good luck with your Master, and sorry I couldn't help you much.

Note: most whaling boats, are doing normal fishing most of the year, except in the whaling period.

Haha no problems! To be fair, I forgot some museums, especially from the Vest, but the Whaling Museum in Sandfjord is on top of my list of place to visit.

Anyway, via Shipspoting.com, maybe a visit to the Lofoten will be necessary, too.

Thank you, Heuhen!