Bonding with Baleen

Baleen hangs from the roof of a whale's mouth and acts like a massive filter that holds food in and squirts water out when the whale gulps in a mouthful of fish and seawater and presses up with its tongue. Baleen is made from hard keratin, like horn, hair or fingernails. Its made up of long fibrous strands that are fused together into sheets with a surface that looks like a vinyl record. Historically, it was important in fashion to make the ribs of corsets, fans, and parasols. At other times in the past it was used to make everything from bows and bowls to traps and string. I'm using it as a lashing material on this project.

The baleen I'm using came from a beached humpback whale. It was a younger animal with relatively short plates - about 2 feet long. A Bowhead Whale can have baleen plates up to 13 feet long!

You can cut the baleen into strips running the length of the plate. When its thin enough you can cut it with a sharp knife, but as it gets thicker towards the middle I find it tough to control the knife and make even strips. So on the short humpback plates I use a scroll saw to cut the strips and then sand the edges to even them out.

To make the baleen flexible you need to boil it. That's when you know whales are mammals. In addition to the usual fishy smell of whale bone, boiling baleen gives off a greasy, hairy, musk smell that could only come from a hairy animal. The thin strips can be bent and twisted into shape and as they dry they return to their hard plastic-like rigidity, but hold their new form. The thicker strips can be split apart like spruce roots, to create two flexible halves. I didn't know that was possible until this weekend - I guess I've never had thick enough baleen to try it. You start the split at the base and carefully pry the two halves apart. The split runs neatly along the inner fibres of the baleen. You can tell split baleen because it will have one flat shiny side and one ridged stringy side. Un-split baleen will have a flat shiny surface on both the front and back.

Baleen starts to harden almost immediately when it hits the air. But it softens again just as quickly when its put back into the boiling water. The baleen spring in the above video was wrapped around a handle for about half an hour before I decided to retry the wrap. Watch it hit the water! It reminded me of a particularly gruesome wolf killer that was used in parts of the Arctic. A piece of baleen is sharpened to a point on both ends and fan folded into a small parcel. When its cooled it will hold its shape. You wrap it in fish skin or meat and place it somewhere that a wolf will eat it. In the warm wet wolf's stomach the baleen straightens out and punctures the wolf's organs. Pretty unpleasant way to go. If you want to go hug your dog now, I'd understand.

After the baleen set, I sanded it down and used hide glue to fill in the gaps between the bands. The sanding neatens the look of the baleen up, but it also smoothes down the sharp edges. I haven't used them yet, but I suspect that the baleen will be much less affected by moisture than sinew. I think they should be more useful for working wet materials.

The five tools I made are all based on Saqqaq tools from Greenland, although the endscraper handle is a more generic style. The Saqqaq scraper handle from Qeqertasussuk was bow shaped and mounted with a scraper on each end. The three knives are faithful reproductions of the originals, as is the side scraper.

Left to Right:

Saqqaq Palaeoeskimo Side Scraper (Spruce, Chert, Baleen, Hide Glue): $152.50 Cdn (tax inc.)

3 Saqqaq Palaeoeskimo Knives (Spruce, Chert, Baleen, Hide Glue): $197.75 Cdn (tax inc.) each

Palaeoeskimo Scraper (Spruce, Chert, Baleen, Hide Glue): $152.50 Cdn (tax inc.)

Photo Credits:
Photos 1-5, 7-9, video: Tim Rast
Photo 6: From Handbook of North American Indians, Vol 5. Arctic, 1984

Photo Captions:
First: Finished Palaeoeskimo reproductions using baleen as a hafting material
Second: A humpback whale baleen plate with lashing strips cut from it
Third: Splitting a baleen strip
Fourth: Outside of the baleen strip (left), inside of the baleen strip (right)
Fifth: Baleen lashings set out to dry
Video: A baleen lashing unravels in the boiling pot
Sixth: Baleen Wolf Killer
Seventh: Finished side knife with baleen lashing
Eighth: Saqqaq style knife with baleen lashing
Ninth: Finished Palaeoeskimo tools