Explore Alaska's Whaling Coast in New Book
In 1850, commercial whaling ships entered the Bering Sea for the first time. There, they found the summer grounds of bowhead whales, as well as local Inuit people who had been whaling the Alaskan coast for 2,000 years.
- Anchorage, AK (1888PressRelease) April 15, 2014 - The newest addition to Arcadia Publishing's popular Images of America series is Alaska's Whaling Coast from local author Dale Vinnedge. The book boasts more than 200 vintage images depicting Alaska's coast.
Within a few years, almost the entire Pacific fleet came north each June to find a path through the melting ice, and the Inuit way of whaling-in fact, their entire livelihood-would be forever changed. Baleen was worth nearly $5 a pound. But the new trading posts brought guns, alcohol and disease. In 1905, a new type of whaling using modern steel whale-catchers and harpoon cannons appeared along the Alaskan coast.
Yet the Inuit and Inupiat continue whaling today from approximately 15 small towns scattered along the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Strait. Whaling for these people is a life-or-death proposition in a land considered uninhabitable by many, for without the whale whole villages probably could not survive as they have for centuries.
Images of America: Alaska's Whaling Coast honors the cultures of the Inuit and Inupiat by educating readers about the history and evolution of whaling in Alaska.
Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or online.
Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America's people and places. Have we done a book on your town? Visit http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/.
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