CANADA ~ Red Bay Basque Whaling Station - Labrador - UNESCO ~

... Great postcard of a very interesting National Historical UNESCO site... a perfect combination of nature and history... this site represents a rare, most complete and best preserved testimony of the European whaling tradition's and whaling process...  it includes the remains of rendering ovens, cooperages, a wharf, living quarters and a cemetery, together with the underwater wrecks of vessels and whale bone deposits... how they killed the whales is not a pleasant explanation ☹... you'll have to look it up yourself if you want to know... Big Thanks Andrene!! (✿ ♥‿♥) Fingers crossed 🤞 and hope the traveling postcards will be here soon!

Red Bay was established  at the north-eastern tip of Canada on the shore of the Strait of Belle Isle.

Gran Baya, as it was called by the Basque sailors from France and Spain who founded it in the 1530’s, was used as a base for coastal hunting and became a major source of whale oil which was shipped to Europe where it was used for lighting.  They made an annual transatlantic voyage to the site for summer whale hunting. The station was used for some 70 years, before the local whale population was depleted.

They primarily hunted the Southern Right whales because they were slow moving, and yield large amounts of oil. Now on the endangered species list, they got their name because they were considered “the right whale to kill,” due to their high blubber content and propensity to float when dead, making retrieval of blubber easier.

The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station in Newfoundland and Labrador became Canada’s 17th World Heritage site in 2013.

Stamp:

Prepaid postcard from Post Canada
(Issued 03-07-2015)