To look back on Dundee's whale fishing industry is to wipe away the soot from a dirty window and peer in at a long gone where where everything is different. Not only is the idea of whale hunting abhorrent to modern sensibilities, the attitudes of those involved in the trade are sometimes difficult to discern. When the fishery was at its height the burgh was an odd mix of high poverty, entrepreneurial energy and religious intensity. A story in George Martin's Dundee Worthies (Dundee, 1934, pp. 127-8) exemplifies this. The Greenland area was flourishing for Dundee ships in the first part of the 19th century. One whaling ship owner was a well to do merchant who resided in a mansion in the Nethergate. One of his chief employees was John Duncan, who was perturbed when his master's vessel did not return to the Tay after a whaling expedition at the dame time as other local vessels. After some delay it finally appeared on a Sunday morning and John eagerly went to tell his employer. A servant said the family were at breakfast, but John insisted on interrupting with his news. 'Mr T,' he burst out. 'The Greenland has come in and is anchored in the roads. ' His boss upbraided him for relaying this matter of business on the Sabbath, then his commercial senses kicked in and he asked, 'John, my man, did ye hear is she was weel fished?' John Duncan, however, said he would take his boss's initial advice and leave the matter until the Sabbath was done and walked out of the mansion without a further word.
Another, slighter anecdote from Dundee Worthies demands attention. A Dundonian lad called Jimmy was a new recruit to the whalers and was given his first major responsibility of taking the ships' wheel. He was told to steer straight according to a particular star in the sky. After about an hour the Captain noted that the ship was not ploughing the depth of water it should have been in. He went on deck and accosted the recruit: 'Why the - didn't ye steer for the star as I told you?' And Jimmy replied, 'Och! I lost yon star, but I found anither!' (p. 152)
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