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

...Beautiful mural by Newfoundland artist Lloyd Pretty... a whaling boat that can be seen at the visitors center of Red Bay National Historic Site... a site that represents a rare, most complete and best preserved testimony of the European whaling tradition's and whaling process in the world... this rowboat is known as a "chalupa"... measuring 8 meters long by 2 meters wide it is one of the greatest achievements in marine technology... its construction has inspired boat builders well into the 21thC... postmarked at Red Bay... Thanks a lot Glenn! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Located on the Strait of Belle Isle, Red Bay comprises the largest known 16thC  Basque whaling station in North America.

Every year from the 1530s to the early 1700C, as many as 2000 Basque men and boys would leave their families in southern France and northern Spain to voyage over 4000 km across the North Atlantic Ocean. These whalers were in search of North Atlantic and Greenland Right whales.

They primarily hunted these 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.

Stamps:

2018 Birds of Canada
(20-08-2018)