The Tancook Whalers: Origins, Rediscovery, and Revival by Robert C. Post

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 307 professionally executed by Jean-Pierre Proulx but far too short and circumscribed chronologically and geographically to be more than an introductory guide. Proulx provides chapters on prehistoric, Basque, English, Dutch, and American whaling. Matters of technology are unevenly handled chapter to chapter, as are the causes of the various fisheries’ rises and declines. Statistics are sometimes presented out of context and in unconverted sums of the period. Predictably, Proulx’s coverage of Basque whaling is best, suggesting that his forthcoming book on that subject will be noteworthy. Kenneth R. Martin Dr. Martin is a consulting historian living in Woolwich, Maine. A specialist in maritime and business history, he is the author of several works on American whaling. His latest book, written with Nathan Lipfert, is Lobstering and the Maine Coast (1985). He is currently at work with Ralph L. Snow on a history of Bath, Maine. The Tancook Whalers: Origins, Rediscovery, and Revival. By Robert C. Post. Bath: Maine Maritime Museum, 1985. Pp. xi+113; illustra­ tions, bibliography, index. $15.00 (paper). What a treat Bob Post’s boat book is! It has the charm and modesty of a study that grew simply out of pleasure yet is full of appealing information for people who may never before have felt much curiosity about maritime history. The writing is graceful, Sam Manning’s draw­ ings are wonderful, and the reader is also rewarded with informative photographs and ample technical details. But best of all, Post has incorporated these attractive qualities into a model analysis of the relations between craftsmanship and culture. The Tancook whaler was one species of several different but related types of 19th-century fishing vessels employed along the North Amer­ ican coast from Block Island, Rhode Island, to Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia. Along with all the other double-enders generically called whal­ ers, these were practical boats, built for rough work in hard conditions. However, in an evolution that reminds one of John Kouwenhoven’s idea of vernacular art, the Tancook whaler emerged in its finished form as a distinctively elegant craft—seaworthy and efficient but also sleek and fast. Those qualities made it celebrated in its own time, then a design source for pleasure yachts, and finally the inspiration for a Maine Maritime Museum 34-foot replica that would teach oldfashioned boat-building skills as well as a sense of the ways boats like this emerged from the small island communities that originally made and used them. The Tancook Islands (Big and Little) lie at the mouth of Mahone Bay, their eastern sides exposed to Atlantic weather. Neither has any natural harbors, and on their Mahone Bay sides the water is shoal, 308 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE thus denying the islanders good anchorages as well. So the settlers of these unpromising places were from the beginning pushed to develop boats with particular characteristics. They had to be shoal-draft and capable of being pulled ashore; hulls needed to be easily driven be­ cause summer morning calms meant rowing for miles out to the fish­ ing grounds; getting back home in a northwesterly gale required an ability to beat to windward; and for fast sailing the boats had to be able to carry plenty of canvas. What Post makes clear, though, is that hands, minds, and the forces of culture were the crucial ingredients shaping these long, slender, schooner-rigged centerboarders. The is­ landers’ keenness for speed, for instance, was not simply a matter of getting fish to market quickly; it had as much to do with generations of particularly skillful builders and a local tradition of boat racing, but also a certain feistiness born of the vagaries of economic life, occasional contraband trading, and a disposition to push systems— whether of mainland rules or building boats—to the limits. There are delightful nuggets of information in every chapter. We learn about an ingenious mooring system developed in the absence of usable harbors or anchorages and discover that the invention of the mackerel jig influenced boat design. We find out that in these closely knit families everyone had well-defined tasks; men planted potatoes and cabbage while women planted the...