A whale of a tale

The big blue

by Amanda Cropp

For many Cantabrians of a certain age, no trip to the museum was complete without a visit to the garden courtyard to gawk in awe at the blue whale skeleton.

With parents conveniently looking the other way, more adventurous kids treated the bones like a giant jungle gym, probably unaware they were clambering over what is still the largest whale skeleton in the world held in a museum collection.

The 26.5m-long monster featured prominently in redevelopment plans ditched in 2003 after a bitter battle over proposed changes to the museum's historic buildings.

Now the museum is reconsidering its options and the bones are likely to play a starring role in a planned $66 million revamp.

The skeleton, acquired by the museum in 1908 after the whale's body washed ashore near Okarito on the West Coast, was removed from display nine years ago. Since then, it has been available only to those lucky enough to join occasional behind-the-scenes tours to view restoration work on the 200 or so bones.

The larger vertebrae, wrapped in plastic in case the roof leaks, look rather like a collection of aeroplane propellers. Along with the massive 1.5 tonne skull, the heavier bones were lifted into the building by crane through an opening in the roof and will have to exit the same way.

Museum conservator Sasha Stollman trained in the United States, where one of her more unusual assignments involved examining the feet of the Statue of Liberty for possible remedial work, but she says Cantabrians' affection for the whale made the two-year restoration project particularly rewarding.

"There was a woman in her eighties who came through in her wheelchair. She remembered the first [outdoor] installation and was quite excited to relive moments of her childhood by being in the presence of the whale skeleton.

"I'm really pleased we have been able to fit it up as such a useful behind-the-scenes exhibit and find as many opportunities to let people see it.

"Being able to stand right next to a single vertebra and see it comes up to here on me, or it's taller than my child, you appreciate the scale and size differently, and it feels special to the few people that get back here."

When Sasha joined the Canterbury Museum staff in 1995, the female whale skeleton had recently been removed from the courtyard location where an overhang from the new Antarctic Gallery provided its only protection from the weather.

Old photographs show museum curator Edgar Waite seated atop the skeleton wielding a hammer and chisel and Sasha admits earlier mounting and maintenance methods were a little heavy-handed by today's standards.

"They did things like hosing it down with high-pressure water, which, on one hand, makes me cringe and I wouldn't recommend that for old fragile bones, but, on the other hand, if they hadn't done that, we probably would have had a whole lot more bird poo and things to contend with."

As it was, staff removed vast quantities of nesting material from spaces around the bones and a single unhatched bird's egg.

Sasha explains how the hard outer layer of bone had "delaminated" in places, revealing the more fragile inner honeycomb-like core, which "feels a bit like Weet-Bix".

A potted history The blue whale that washed ashore on Commissioner’s Point north of Okarito in February 1908 was reportedly so high a man on a horse couldn’t see over it.   Ornithologist Edgar Stead bought the carcass from the locals who found it and offered the skeleton to the Canterbury Museum for £500.  The museum could only afford to stump up £200, but raised the balance by public subscription and only just in time.   Museum curator Edgar Waite noted in a fundraising pamphlet that there had been “disquieting” inquiries from the United States, “a country whose propensity for acquiring ‘big’ things is proverbial”.  Meanwhile, Stead and three other men launched into the filthy task of flensing the whale, a month-long job undertaken with shovels, picks and hay knives.  Stead describes the stench of rotting whale flesh “as if forty thousand freezing and soap works were holding a reception, with sewerage systems for guests”. The odour from it clearly took some time to wear off because, on their way home, the men still smelt so bad they were refused accommodation at a Hokitika hotel.   After the boat journey, the bones were railed from Lyttelton into the city and photographs show them arriving at the museum on horse-drawn wagons.   Huge crowds turned out when the articulated skeleton went on display just over 100 years ago, and no doubt they will again when the whale eventually makes a reappearance.

A vet X-rayed some of the bones to determine the exact location of long rusty nails driven into vertebrae as part of the old mounting system, and they were painstakingly removed with a special "core drill" designed to cut closely around the metal pins while doing minimal damage to the bone.

Microscopically small hollow glass spheres were mixed with resin to create a sort of putty for filling holes and replacing missing pieces of bone.

"It's very workable, very lightweight, and easy to carve, so we carve and paint it."

When Sasha knocks on the end of a vertebra, the hollow sound is the only evidence of the meticulous repair job carried out by her team.

The restoration project was finally completed in 2005. Every step of the process was carefully recorded and the techniques developed might be employed in other museums around the world, like the one in Greece that has already sought advice about carrying out remedial work on a damaged whale skull.

As part of her research into the skeleton, Sasha visited the remote beach where the beached whale was discovered and found it quite a moving experience. She was guided to the spot by Okarito resident Ramari Stewart, who has gathered local folklore about the whale, and they also visited the lagoon where the bones were cleaned before being transported by boat to Greymouth and Wellington, and finally by inter-island ferry to Christchurch.

Ramari grew up in the Bay of Plenty, where she learnt to flense whales, stripping off the blubber to expose the bones. Back then, whale meat wasn't wasted.

"If it was fresh, it was eaten. The different species have different tastes, just like with land mammals and the way beef tastes different to venison."

After viewing historical photographs of the beached whale, and drawing on her knowledge of flensing and conversations with elderly Okarito residents, Ramari was able to provide useful information on the museum skeleton.

She suggests some damage to the bones, which Sasha had attributed to weathering, occurred when the carcass was cut up, because those doing the flensing were inexperienced and did not realise the fragility of "green" whale bone.

Locals laid claim to the whale carcass and, although they managed to extract some oil, which they used to oil boots and saddles, Ramari says it was probably rancid, as the whale was almost certainly dead when it washed ashore.

"It was a stinker."

How the whale died is still a mystery but before the beaching Ramari says a large whale was seen with a pod of orca, known to hunt blue whales and feed on their tongues. This scenario could explain why the skeleton is missing a jawbone; Ramari is highly sceptical of stories the 416kg bone was stolen.

The museum has used laser-scanning technology to replicate a missing jugal bone (from under the eye socket) from a special foam, and Sasha says staff might try to reproduce the large jawbone using the same process.

Display options for the whale are still under consideration.

"We have discussed the idea of providing a virtual outline to show the size and girth of the whale, and the size and shape of the tail fluke. If we don't do [something like that] it will look like some big snake, so we need to have some indication of the fluke."

Ramari Stewart is also keen to see this big mama back before the public.

"Dare I say it, if it was in the hands of Te Papa or somewhere else, it would have been exhibited by now. What are they dragging the chain for?

"I just don't understand why it's not the pride and joy of Canterbury."

The museum's curator of vertebrate zoology, Dr Paul Scofield, agrees the whale is an important part of the Canterbury collection and, quite apart from its historical significance, the heated debate over continued whaling by countries such as Japan is further reason to provide a close-up view of one of these huge endangered mammals.

"People think of 26.5m as big, but until you see it and imagine the brain in that skull, and the eye in that socket, it's difficult to get worked up about the biggest animal in the world. We hope that when it's on display, people will feel for this animal and its plight."

What happens next . . . Grand plans for the museum had the nine-tonne whale skeleton “diving” over the main stairs in a dramatic entrance foyer.  However, the new entrance and other aspects of the museum re-design ignited the kind of public stoush over heritage buildings in which Christchurch seems to specialise (witness the recent fight over a music school in the nearby Arts Centre).  Heritage advocates were appalled at proposed changes to the historic Benjamin Mountfort-designed building, while the museum trust board said old stonework currently covered over would be re-exposed and argued that the confusing layout needed fixing because visitors got hopelessly lost.  The matter ended up before the Environment Court and it ruled that positive elements of the refurbishment were outweighed by the adverse effects on the Mountfort building, “which would be unthinkable if performed on any other valuable objects in the museum’s collections”.  So, now it’s back to the drawing board and the museum intends applying to the Government’s regional museum fund for $29.7 million. The remainder of the estimated $66m project will come from museum funds ($13.2m) and from contributing local authorities ($23.1m).  The manager of museum programmes, Lesley Colsell, says circulation is still a serious problem because of the way new buildings were tacked on to old ones. “A lot of people say it’s like a rabbit warren.”  Other issues such as earthquake strengthening, air conditioning, and improvements to storage areas will also be addressed, but it is unlikely work will start before 2012, at the earliest.