Whale oil

Today, the annual humpback whale migration lures tourists keen for a sighting of these gentle giants. But in 1912 it enticed Norwegian whalers to the area to hunt whales at nearby Point Cloates. Aboard steam-driven whale chasers and factory ships, the Norwegians would launch grenade harpoons to capture and kill the ocean giants. Onshore, they’d process the whales’ offal into fertiliser and blubber into oil to be stored in bottles like this one. By 1916 the whalers had decimated the whale population and abandoned the whaling station. Various other whalers followed in the Norwegians’ wake until World War II, after which the Australian North West Whaling Company took on the station from 1949 until 1957. Whaling was banned in Australia in 1978 and whale populations are now bouncing back.