La chasse au phoque

Captions, clockwise from the top right. (English / French):

Processing seal pelts, St. John's around 1900. / Transformation des peaux de phoques, Saint-Jean vers 1900.

From 1793 to the early 1980's, the departure of sealing ships from St. John's was an annual event of great social importance. At its peak in the 1850's, the seal hunt employed 13,600 "swilers" and accounted for as much as one quarter of the value of all Newfoundland exports. / De 1793 au début des années 1980, le départ des bateaux phoquiers était un événement social fort important à Saint-Jean. À son apogée, dans les années 1850, la chasse au phoque employait quelque 13 600 personnes et représentait le quart de la valeur des exportations de l'île.

The seal hunt was, for most of its history, much more than an industry. It claimed many lives, and represented a dark page in labour history, but it still was an annual ritual marked by ceremony and excitement. / La chasse au phoque était beaucoup plus qu'une industrie/ Malgré les pertes de vies inutiles et les conditions de travail inhumaines. Elle demeurait un rituel marqué chaque année de cérémonies et de réjouissances.

April 4, 1914. The S.S. Bellaventure returns to St. John's with the bodies of 69 sealers. 132 men from the S.S. Newfoundland had been lost on the ice for two days; 78 perished. / Le 4 avril 1914, Le S.S. Bellaventure rentrait à Saint-Jean avec les dépouilles de 69 chasseurs/ Des 132 hommes de S.S. Newfoundland perdus sur la glace durant deux jours, 78 sont morts.

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