The Whale Hunt
Posted by Change the Game on February 6, 2008
The Whale Hunt / by Jonathan Harris
The Whale Hunt / by Jonathan Harris
The Whale Hunt is an experiment in human storytelling.
In May 2007, I spent nine days living with a family of Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost settlement in the United States. The first several days were spent in the village of Barrow, exploring ramshackle structures, buying gear, and otherwise helping the whaling crew to prepare for the hunt. We then traveled by snowmobile out onto the frozen Arctic Ocean, where we camped three miles from shore on thick pack ice, pitching our tents about ten feet from the open water. Boats were readied, harpoons prepared, whaling guns loaded, white tunics donned, a snow fence constructed, and then we sat silently in the -22 °F air, in constant daylight, waiting for whales to appear.
The purpose of this project was threefold:
A thousand-year-old tradition, the Inupiat whale hunt provides the community’s annual food supply, currently limited by international law to 22 whales a year. Each spring as the ocean thaws, ice breaks away from the mainland as a single massive chunk, which then floats out to sea, creating a canal of open water called the “lead”. It is through this lead that Bowhead whales migrate north to the Arctic Circle, where they spend summers, surfacing for air every 30-45 minutes en route. We saw hundreds of whales on the horizon, but most were too far away to attack. Finally on the fourth day two whales (each 36 feet long and weighing around 40 tons) were harpooned, hauled up onto the ice using a block and tackle system that resembles a giant tug of war between man and sea, and summarily butchered, the meat and blubber then distributed to the Barrow community.
I documented the entire experience with a plodding sequence of 3,214 photographs, beginning with the taxi ride to Newark airport, and ending with the butchering of the second whale, seven days later. The photographs were taken at five-minute intervals, even while sleeping (using a chronometer), establishing a constant “photographic heartbeat”. In moments of high adrenaline, this photographic heartbeat would quicken (to a maximum rate of 37 pictures in five minutes while the first whale was being cut up), mimicking the changing pace of my own heartbeat.
The purpose of this project was threefold:
First, to experiment with a new interface for human storytelling. The photographs are presented in a framework that tells the moment-to-moment story of the whale hunt. The full sequence of images is represented as a medical heartbeat graph along the bottom edge of the screen, its magnitude at each point indicating the photographic frequency (and thus the level of excitement) at that moment in time. A series of filters can be used to restrict this heartbeat timeline, isolating the many sub stories occurring within the larger narrative (the story of blood, the story of the captain, the story of the arctic ocean, etc.). Each viewer will experience the whale hunt narrative differently, and not necessarily in a linear fashion, constructing his or her own understanding of the experience.
Second, to subject myself to the same sort of incessant automated data collection process that I usually write computer programs to conduct (in previous projects like We Feel Fine, Lovelines, Universe, 10×10, and Phylotaxis). Much effort is spent making computers understand what it’s like to be human (through data mining and artificial intelligence), but rarely do humans try to see things from a computer’s perspective. I was interested in reaching some degree of empathy with the computer, a constant thankless helper in my work.
Third, to take an epic personal experience from the physical world and translate it optimally to the Internet, so that many people can share it.
SAVE the WHALES said
How disgusting y would u do this horrible thing to a harmless creature.
MAybe we should kill u
loba said
this is awfull. how can anybody be proud of savaging a beautiful kind animal. i hope u will suffer like the whale has, oneday .
Alina said
“to experiment with a new interface for human storytelling”. Very inspiring. What’s next? Female genital mutilation?
phillipeb said
While i can appreciate that this cultures custom also provides the natives with food and materials to use for the coming year i however cannot seem to wrap my head around why you would film this. I can understand the need to look through a lens of human experience and document its journey, but in a world in which we fight to preserve animals as the national resources they are it seems strange that you have some how glorified the killing of these majestic creatures. You seem like a brilliant person and i can tell by the ilk of your projects that you are trying to trap and analyze the human paradigm as it interrelates to the world and its own systems around us.
As far as full disclosure goes I am an animal rights activist but even as such i am a realist and understand at times the need for cultures or civilizations to hunt for food that would sustain them especially in the sub polar regions you have visited. Perhaps i take umbrage to the fact that even in your description you called it a ritual. As someone who grew up on a native American reservation i understand the need for this and it is exactly this ritualistic aspect of life that shows reverence for the animals in which we must kill to survive (I am a vegan these days) Documenting something which is sacred is another pet peave of mine. Because cultures of the west have bastardized their own sense of mystery as well as cultural history we feel some perverse need to document others as a way to observe without ever really understanding what it means to be connected with myth and ritual. In the constant expanse of our territories we have lost the tribal wisdom of our forefathers and no amount of camera work however chronologically times to our heartbeat can reclaim that. It is an inner work that must be found and examined instead of an outer work that must be studied.
Quit frankly i do not know why you would not use the method you describe to shed light on the activities of westernized nations. To show the almost Romanesque perversity that we attach everyday activities and create and formulate new bonds.
I wish that you had not done this bit of experimentation because i think by doing so it has cheapened the cultural lexicon of this people as well as endorsed something that should be anathema to any civilization that does not need to hunt for sustenance.
Randall said
You are SICK!!!! These people do it because it has been the way the have always known how to survive!!!! You did it for FUN???!!!! SICK!!!!!!!
Randall
Vegan4Ever said
Why would a human being, I believe to be compassionate within, no matter where you come from, would be so glad to take part in such a cruel and violating act. This maybe necessary for the Eskimos, bus it is definitely not necessary for you to participate in, since you come from a western background and should know better. Moreover, if you participated in such a horrible thing, I would not be in such a rush to film all of this and post it on the Internet. This sure does not make you seem like a good person. I despise pleasure being taken on expense of other creatures of this planet, creatures that can feel and think, and can definitely be aware of what is done to them. Shame on you
Phil Anderson said
I appreciate the documentation of such an important tradition. The modern society has a distinct lack of connection to it’s own history and surroundings. We often sit in our ivory towers forgetting that the long evolutionary development of our brains was only possible because of the protein and calories available through the consumption of meat. Butchering an animal for survival and food has always been, in my experience, something that carries with it a sense of respect and gratitude for where that food came from. Assuming our culture and ideology is somehow superior to those who believe differently is ignorant and narrow minded. The “cultural eugenics” that is occuring in the modern society is disgusting. Thank you Jonathan for documenting a disappearing world.