Dr. Andrew Trites, team leader for the blue whale project in Norway, rests his foot on the whale’s skull. The opening near his foot is the whale’s brain cavity. Transcontinental Media photo by Eric McCarthyDAVE STEWART
as published in The Guardian May 23, 2008
The former executive director of the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation is hoping the province will soon find a home for prized collections such as the 26-metre blue whale currently being exhumed in western P.E.I.
Ian Scott said he is saddened to see that, once again, the Island is silently surrendering a piece of its heritage.
The blue whale, which washed ashore 20 years ago, will be shipped to a museum in British Columbia.
Scott said the attention being given to this whale might be just what is needed to jump-start talks of a provincial museum, one that could house such a display.
Four years before this whale was buried, the P.E.I. legislature passed the Museum Act giving a mandate in natural history to the Island’s provincial museum, known as the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation.
“Fulfilling the mandate, definitely that’s a concern at this stage,’’ Scott said. “Twenty-five years later that mandate is still not being fulfilled. They still haven’t hired a curator.’’
When it comes to provincial museums, the province offers Beaconsfield, Eptek, Miscouche, Green Park, Orwell Corner, Basin Head and Elmira Railroad Museum.
“We have created the wheel but we have not strengthened the hub. The whole artifactory issue was central last year. Sure we had the art in place for over 35 years and it has served a function for temporary storage but it’s very inadequate.’’
Scott believes losing something as precious as a monstrous 26-metre whale might draw attention to the need for a major museum.
“You start to realize we do have something the world is interested in,’’ he said.
David Keenlyside, the current executive director of the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation, is out of province this week and was unavailable for comment.
If the province ever did find the space, there is certainly no shortage of whale carcasses to choose from across the province.
Don McAlpine, curator of zoology at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, said numerous whales are buried in P.E.I.
“There are other whales buried over there, no blue whales that I’m aware of but I know there are a number of sperm whales and there are some, actually, at the same site,’’ McAlpine said, referring to the western P.E.I. site where the blue whale is being exhumed.
Rosemary Curley, with the P.E.I. Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, confirmed a number of burial sites exist.
Nail Pond, near the western tip of P.E.I., has a plethora of buried whales.
One of them is a fin whale, measuring 62 feet in length, which was buried on Sept. 16, 1994. It weighed 52,000 pounds.
Curley said there are also a couple of humpback whales buried at Lakeside (near St. Peters). In fact, these burials were preceded by a burial service prior to interment. She said other burial sites include Tignish, South Lake, Basin Head and Wood Islands.
“Quite a few of them have been stranded over the years,’’ Curley said.
She said it’s interesting to note that whales are the property of the federal government when they’re alive but belong to P.E.I. once they’re dead.
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