February 2005 - East Coast Museum Tour

In February of 2005, Stacy traveled to the East Coast to research whale skeleton restoration and rearticulation. Whale skeletons have been hanging in museums on the east coast since the 19th century. Stacy wanted to see some of them up close and compare them to more modern skeletons in order to decide how to prepare her whale skeleton for the display in the new Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center that will be built in 2006-2007. As you might suspect, the technology for rearticulating and displaying whale skeletons has evolved quite a lot over time.

Kodiak artist Bruce Nelson also came along on tour to study the history and techniques of whalebone art in order to get some better ideas for drawing the bones of the Kodiak Gray Whale. As part of the grant Stacy received from the Alaska Conservation Foundation for her project, Bruce will draw a selection of the bones to be used for prints and a poster. He wanted to see a wide range of skeletons and some historic whale bone art in the collections of various museums to get inspiration for his own approach.


MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY - SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Stacy and Bruce first spent a few days at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institute with Dr. James Mead, the Director of the Marine Mammal Program. Dr. Mead is an institution unto himself as he has been at the Smithsonian for over 35 years and is considered one of the world's leading authorities on marine mammals. Stacy and Bruce were very interested in seeing the famous Korean or Western Pacific Gray Whale skeleton that has been hanging in the museum since 1913 and to discuss with Dr. Mead the best way to rearticulate and suspend large whale skeletons. Stacy and Bruce got a fascinating tour of the "catacombs" beneath the main museum floors where countless marine mammal specimens from all over the world are stored.

In addition to the bones, Dr. Mead showed Bruce some of his personal collection of historic whalebone art dating back to the 19th century. The prints of lithographs in the Osteographie Des Cetaces Vivants Et Fossiles - Atlas 1868-1879 by Pierre Joseph Van Beneden and Francois Louis Paul Gervais, was amazing. This volume contains the lithographs of graphite drawings made of the bones of several species of Atlantic Ocean whale species and is considered the standard for whalebone art of the time period. Needless to say, both Stacy and Bruce felt they had hit the jackpot. Dr. Mead spent a great deal of his valuable time discussing the techniques used by the historic artists to produce the prints in the volume giving both Stacy and Bruce an education in this nearly lost art and inspiration for modern applications.

They also learned from Dr. Mead that the skeletons of all of the great baleen whales and many toothed whales had been drawn during the commercial whaling period in Europe and America from the early 19th century through the 20th century but the Gray Whale had been missed because it was already extinct in the Atlantic Ocean and was believed to have been driven to extinction in the Pacific Ocean as well. Time would eventually show that Pacific Gray Whales still existed in small numbers having survived the onslaught of two major whaling periods. Once whaling was finally curtailed in the U.S. in the mid-1900s, these survivors rebounded in the absence of whaling pressure to thrive once again in the Eastern Pacific.

One of the highlights at the Smithsonian was arriving early one morning before the doors opened to the general public and viewing the Korean Gray Whale skeleton up close from the catwalk behind the skeleton with Dr. Mead. He went over the entire skeleton from stem to stern with Stacy and Bruce explaining how the bones were held together and suspended from the ceiling. Although this skeleton was hung nearly 100 years ago, it is still in great condition and is an awesome sight in the display room of the museum.

Dr. Mead also arranged for Stacy and Bruce to tour the Smithsonian Support Center and Whale Warehouse where all the animal skeletons for the museum are prepared. They met Dr. John Osowsky who is the Smithsonian Bone Man, or osteologist, and knows more about bone preparation and restoration than almost anyone in the world. He showed Stacy and Bruce the various methods he uses to clean different kinds of animal skeletons. For marine mammals, he relies on bacteria to do the job. He places the whole animal (such as a porpoise) or parts of a whale in containers and covers them with elephant manure from the National Zoo. After a few months, the bones come out amazingly clean. If you don't have access to elephant manure, horse manure also works well.


NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM - NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

The next stop of the East Coast museum tour was the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, once a major whaling port on the eastern seaboard. Today, many restored Victorian houses of the whaling period, complete with widow walks on their rooftops, still adorn the streets of the port city along the picturesque water front which supports a busy commercial fishing industry. When whale oil was once as valuable to humans as crude oil is today, this town was a center of great commerce and culture in 19th century.

Stacy and Bruce viewed three more great whale skeletons at the museum: an 80-foot Blue Whale, a Humpback Whale and a Sperm Whale. All three skeletons were prepared within the last 10 years and offered more ideas for the Kodiak display.

Whale skeleton experts, Mr. and Mrs. Konnerth, were just completing the Sperm Whale display, the newest skeleton in the museum. Stacy and Bruce had the invaluable opportunity to talk with the Konnerths and watch them working to put the final touches on the magnificent Sperm Whale skeleton. All three modern whale skeleton displays were posed with beautifully curved spines that gave them a dynamic and lifelike look.

The New Bedford Sperm Whale skeleton display was superb. In its own room with black ceiling, dark blue walls and dramatic spot lighting, it was posed at eye level with a graceful bend to its spine. The massive skull was both supported from underneath and suspended from the ceiling, and the visitor could walk completely around the whale viewing it from every angle from behind a railing. Stunning, floor to ceiling interpretive banners hung on the walls telling about Sperm Whale biology, evolution, whaling history and conservation.


KENDALL LIBRARY - NEW BEDFORD

The Kendall Library in New Bedford is the home of America's largest collection of whale and whaling related art, music, literature, whaler's logs, and diaries. Located just a few blocks from the museum, the library is available to researchers studying whaling history and other whale topics. Stacy and Bruce toured the library with Senior Curator, Dr. Stuart Frank, and decided that the Kendall Library fully lived up to its reputation as the Mother Lode of whalebone art. They got to see photos of 13th century Japanese scrolls with beautiful paintings of Pacific whale species and dozens of examples of drawings and photos of historic whale skeleton displays in Europe. In addition, Dr. Frank showed Bruce many more examples of whale skeleton lithographs that were amazingly detailed, accurate and beautiful.

HARVARD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

The last stop on the East Coast museum tour was the Museum of Natural History at Harvard University. There, Stacy and Bruce saw three more baleen whale skeletons that were of the same vintage as the Smithsonian gray whale, about 100 years old. In a crowded hall filled with glass cabinets containing African animals of every species imaginable, a Fin Whale, an Atlantic Right whale and a Sperm Whale were suspended nose to tail like giant sardines flat against the ceiling. From a second story balcony, visitors could walk all the way around the whales and view them at eye level, which is quite preferable to the neck- craning view looking straight up from the ground floor. The giant Fin Whale's nose extended a couple feet over the balcony and had a protective glass shield surrounding it.

Many things were learned about displaying whale skeletons at the Harvard Museum. Squeezing too many huge whale skeletons into one room shared with African animals is certainly not desirable and is a bit overwhelming to the general public. When you hang a whale skeleton for 100 years, you'd better have a way to access it so that you can clean it periodically. The Harvard whale skeletons had 100 years' worth of accumulated dust built up on them. The straight spine mounting of the historic skeletons was far less interesting and aesthetic than the more modern curved spine skeletons at New Bedford.