Out of the blue, on the morning of November 5, 2001, we received a call from the ROM asking if we could assist in retrieving a Right Whale. The whale had died in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence and had washed up on the east shore of Magdelan Island. We agreed instantly and that afternoon our crew left for Magdelan Island, located just north of Prince Edward Island. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans instructed us on flensing the whale - the process of removing flesh from bones. With the help of a back-hoe, the skeleton was flensed, put into a container and shipped back to our shop. The skeleton was then buried in a bed of horse manure and left to naturally deflesh and degrease.
Since then we have retrieved a Sperm Whale and a Fin Whale. The Fin Whale was challenging to retrieve. It was found close to Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia approximately 60 feet from shore when the tide was out. When the tide was in, we were working in water 4 feet deep. The whale was also completely inaccessible with any vehicle or heavy equipment. We walked all our equipment 10 km to the site and began our work with chest waders and windbreakers on and custom-made flensing knives in hand. We cut four foot square sections flesh off of the 56 foot long animal at a time with gravity's help. With a crew of seven, one person sharpened knives continually all day. In three days, we managed to remove all the flesh around the ribs and vertebrae. On the fourth day, we were warned of an impending storm that could possibly wash the rest of the whale out to the ocean again. Worried that we would not have enough time to flense the head or tail on site before the storm, we dragged the head and tail tethered on a 50’ line with a fishing boat into the closest harbor. The waves were 10 feet high by the time we reached the harbor. We arrived in Forchu Bay (a little sea sick) at 11pm, with the head and tail safely in tow. The next morning, the bone and remaining carcass were hoisted into a container with a crane and trucked back to our shop.