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Ernie Fedoruk is Vice President of the
Outdoor Writers of Canada and former B.C. Director with
the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association. Winner of
26 awards in the last 16 years, the sports/outdoors
columnist retired from a 48-year newspaper career in
1996.
Messages can be faxed to him at (250) 592-7090, or emailed
to efedoruk@islandnet.com
"A man's passion for fishing should not allow it
to interfere with his love of family. But if the glue
binds, then please consider the angler's passion also
a love for family." |
WHALE KILLERS
It has been 34 years since I first wrote a series
of marvelous adventures the late Ralph Seth Whaley
experienced during his lifetime. He was a superb archer,
extraordinary outdoorsman and a highly successful
Seattle businessman. Last fall's unsuccessful attempts
by the Makaha Tribe of Washington State to renew its
right to whale-hunting traditions reminded of a man
who, in the 1930s, killed an orca. Ralph Whaley may
very well be the only white man who has ever killed
a whale with bow and arrow.
This is his story. . .
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The sturdy 14-foot Peterborough canoe rode lazily on the
Puget Sound swells. Its occupant sat motionless but expectant,
peering intently into the blue-green waters around him. An
over-sized arrow was notched in a bow and held in readiness.
It was a strange scene -- an archer fishing! Suddenly, and
right in front of the canoe, a killer whale surfaced and spouted
its jet into the Pacific sunlight.
Like a spring released, bowman Ralph Whaley aimed and quickly
released his arrow at the adult orca. The arrow pierced hide
and blubber as the whale submerged. His quarry was about 25
feet long, not especially large as orcas go, but the hunt
added another episode to the saga of an outdoorsman, a long-time
Seattle resident, whose real-life adventures make the exploits
of the legendary Paul Bunyan seem tame.
Successful in business, one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "dollar-a-year
men" the President recruited to serve on the U.S. Shipping
Board during the Second World War, inventor, graduate engineer,
champion golfer, famed archer, trapper, cowpoke, a standout
in baseball, tennis and rowing while attending University
of Washington.
That very briefly describes Ralph Seth Whaley, perhaps the
only white man who can claim to have killed a whale with bow
and arrow. He has killed, with bow and arrow, every known
big-game animal in North American except the musk ox, protected
by law in the years Whaley was establishing his reputation
as a bowman.
Born on New Year's Day in 1988 in Berkeley, Calif., Whaley's
reputation as an outdoorsman got its grounding when his family
moved to Northern Idaho when he was four. The Whaleys' nearest
white neighbors were 17 miles away but the Nez Perce Indian
reservation was only 2 1/2 miles away. As a youngster, Ralph
grew up with the Nez Perce, played their games, learned to
hunt and think like them.
Zoologists from the Smithsonian Institute hired Whaley as
a guide when he was 17. They were so impressed with the teenager's
knowledge and intelligence the scientists urged Whaley to
go to college. He enrolled at the University of Washington
the following year and graduated as an engineer four years
later, in 1911. He was as successful as in business as he
was when hunting or fishing.
When Whaley retired from the business world in 1958, he held
controlling interest in Inland Navigation Company, a West
Coast shipping empire which was a complex of nine firms. Ralph
and his wife left Seattle to take up residence in Victoria.
It was a difficult decision, but love for Vancouver Island's
beauty won over the many friends and business acquaintances
in Seattle.
Whaley had earned considerable fame as an archer and his
navigation company was expanding in the early 1930s when he
was asked to hunt whale with his bow. The request was put
to him by a Hollywood picture company that a few years earlier
had recorded Whaley's prowess as an archer on a buffalo hunt.
Whaley was never one to resist a challenge. He found himself
in the canoe, in waters off Edmonds, WA. A speedy cruiser
came along as support vessel and camera carrier.
The party quickly sighted a pod of blackfish, determined
the mammals' course and left Whaley to manage on his own in
the canoe. His bow had a mighty 102-pound pull. The arrow
was specially designed for the occasion. As Whaley remembered
in 1969, "we rigged it pretty good. A strong nylon line to
the arrow head with a double lead that went through a ring
in the bow of the canoe." Attached at the end of the line
was an empty beer keg. If I was to run into any difficulty,
I'd let the line go and the buoyant keg would enable our party
to follow the whale.
"Darned if he didn't blow right in front of me," Whaley
added. "A blind man couldn't have missed that shot . . ."
Years of instinctive shooting made the orca an easy mark.
As soon as the arrow found its mark, the whale took off. The
Seattle sportsman, determined not to release the rope too
soon, went on the fastest canoe ride of his life. Cruiser
personnel estimated Ralph's speed at about 27 knots.
What should have been considered inevitable then happened.
The killer whale sounded. Before Whaley could react, canoe,
hunter and equipment was pulled into Puget Sound. By time
recovery was complete, the supposedly-buoyant keg was no where
in sight.
"'That,' I thought, 'is the end of that.' "
"Unfortunately, there had been some publicity attached to
our little expedition . . . in the Seattle papers . . . "Well,
sir, a few days later I was in my office when I received a
telephone call from a little town up the coast. The town marshal,
who must have read the Seattle papers, was on the phone. "He
said if I didn't get that so-and-so whale off his beach, he
would file charges.
"He knew all about it."
"It was my whale, my arrow, and my beer keg . . ."
"I sent a small tug to pull it off the beach."
Copyright ©
Ernie Fedoruk retired in 1996 after a 47-year journalism career as an outdoors and sports columnist, has just completed
14 years as director/officer of the Outdoor Writers of Canada,
also was director of the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association
for 11 years. His passion is fishing – to find and to
protect – and insists his greatest contribution as a
conservationist is incompetence.
Ernie Fedoruk Freelance Journalist
1867 Neil Street Victoria, BC, V8R 3C6, Canada
phone:(250)592-4438 fax:(250)592-7090
e-mail: efedoruk@islandnet.com
To purchase Ernie Fedoruk's column for publication, please
contact efedoruk@islandnet.com
For previous articles by Ernie Fedoruk, click on the links
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