Note 82 — Chapter VII

The harpoon is at present a little different in construction. Pine resin, not "turpentine," is used for the purpose described, and the tips of deers' horns are utilised for the barbs. The most remarkable fact about the west coast of Vancouver Island whaling is its use of inflated sealskins to impede the motion of the animal through the water. This is an Eskimo contrivance in use by the Alaskans and other extreme northern tribes, from whom the West Vancouverians seem to have borrowed it. In Sproat's Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 226, there is an excellent description of whaling as practised in that part of Vancouver Island. The species pursued is usually finbacks, though a "black fish" with good whalebone is occasionally captured.