Our Kiwi Home: A very big story

This story actually begins more than 200 years ago. But first, please give a thought form um, the blue whale who has just given birth to her wincingly large 23-foot (7-metre) calf weighing in at over 5000lb (2268kg).

Junior is consuming over 50 gallons (189 litres) of mum’s milk a day. Even mum was not expecting her daughter to have such an insatiable appetite and grow at the alarming rate of 10lb an hour.

Understandably, it’s not long before mum starts counting down the days until junior progresses to solids and moves out of home.

After seven months of quality time with mum, our baby whale, en route to the summer feeding grounds, develops a taste for krill and likes it so much that she consumes 4000kg of it a day. It’s only a matter of time before our delicate little girl has grown into a beautiful 27m beauty of the Southern Oceans.

Our whale was without doubt a lucky whale for at least two reasons I can think of. First, our whale died in 1908 – one year after plastic was invented, so the oceans were much safer and so much more pleasant. The second reason our whale struck it lucky was that in 1839 the whaling industry was booming, with more than 20 whaling ships working in New Zealand waters.

I can only think our whale stayed safe from the peril of these whaling ships because she took heed of all the pulses, groans and moans sent out on the blue whale social media network. Blue whales have exceptionally loud voices and can communicate with each other up to 1500km apart. A jet engine produces about 140 decibels of noise, while a full grown blue whale logs in at 180 decibels.

Sadly, all good things come to an end - even for lucky blue whales – and after 80 years of eating alarming quantities of krill and travelling 515,000km she died of old age. Now I’m not sure if the two things are connected but it’s interesting to note that the vast distance our whale travelled is not dissimilar to what one hopes to get out of a Toyota Corolla.

Early in 1908 our well-travelled whale was washed up on Commissioner Point, 9.7km north of Ōkārito on the West Coast. From a distance, this 99ft long by 20ft wide carcass could easily have been mistaken for a stranded dismasted vessel.

This could have been the end of the story but on February 17, 1908, in the Christchurch paper, a story about this enormous carcass caught the eye of zoologist Edgar Waite. Edgar was the curator of Canterbury Museum and when he read that article he knew he had to have our whale’s skeleton in his collection.

He then spent months bargaining to get this giant skeleton to Christchurch and made the long journey over the Southern Alps to Ōkārito with William Sparkes, the museum’s taxidermist. I think they must have had some fascinating in-depth conversations on the way – I only hope they were travelling alone.

Understandably, there was great interest around the world in this giant skeleton, but after vigorous fundraising, Canterbury Museum managed to procure what turned out to be the largest blue whale skeleton in any museum collection.

Now before I tell you more I want to create a possible 1908 job vacancy advertisement:

“Wanted: Men to deal with a decomposing beached blue whale. All applicants must not be adverse to the overwhelming stench of rotting whale flesh and voraciously persistent sandflies.

“All applicants must have a strong commitment to cleaning and lifting of extraordinarily heavy oily bones. No sense of smell or close relatives would be an advantage.”

Now I’m not exaggerating about the unpleasantness of the task because this is what Edgar Waite actually wrote: “The stench could be detected some distance from the whale and its melt. How its melt! It smelt as if forty thousand freezing and soap works were holding a reception, with sewerage systems for guests.”

My apologies if you are reading this over breakfast.

Despite the unimpressive working conditions, three men, led by ornithologist Edgar Stead, did take on this revolting task and after four weeks the giant bones were ready to be transported to Christchurch.

The word “transported” conjures up a simple orderly operation but we are talking incomprehensibly large, heavy, smelly bones, which are in a remote location on the other side of the Southern Alps.

This macabre Lego-like pile of bones left the beach by ferry and then was shipped to Lyttelton, loaded on to a train and finally piled on to horse-drawn carts for the final leg of the journey to Canterbury Museum.

Now I’m only hoping that during this long, arduous journey no dogs spied these bones. They would surely have been traumatised for the rest of their lives and become totally dissatisfied with their measly meals for ever more.

In March 1909, our whale went on display in a purpose-built open shelter at Canterbury Museum and from that day she instantly became a favourite for generations of museum visitors.

As a child on wet Sunday afternoons we often would catch the bus from the not so posh end of Worcester St and spend the afternoon at the museum. We knew all the exhibits like good friends but the whale was always top of our must-see list.

The whale went into storage in 1994 and for several years a major conservation project was undertaken. Exposure to the elements had taken its toll, along with generations of nesting sparrows.

I need to create another job vacancy advertisement: “Wanted an experienced person to remove 50 years of sparrow excrement from a 6m-wide blue whale skull. A sense of humour would be an advantage.”

Sorry if you are still lingering over your breakfast.

When the new Canterbury Museum atrium is finally built, our whale will reappear out of storage to start a new chapter of her life suspended dramatically from the ceiling. I feel this is the least she deserves as she is still thought to be the largest blue whale skeleton in a museum collection anywhere in the world.

Strangely I feel it’s been a real honour finding out more about our old friend and, like you, I can’t wait to see her again.