Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1938)

RECORDING A VANISHED CRAFT Porpoise oil making is filmed for future years How these shots in "Porpoise Oil" were made is told here \b&v 180 C()K many years. I had heard of the heroic exploits of the ■ Nova Scotian Indians who used to risk the wild weather of the Bay of Fundy to capture porpoises for the sake of their oil. It occurred to me that this former means of earning a livelihood was worth investigating and recording on film before it had passed completely into the limbo of lost crafts. Here would be a documentary film. I thought, that might have both beauty and significance, and it certainly would offer sufficient action. However, although I had spent considerable time in the company ol the Micmac Indians, who had captured the porpoise and extracted its oil, I had never seen them hunting on the -i-a. because porpoise catching became extinct about the beginning of this century, when petroleum oils were developed and sold at lower prices. So th> problem was to find a former porpoise hunter who could tell me about the technique of the craft and who was strong enough to undertake his old profession once more. Finally, one afternoon. I found Matthew Pictou digging clams "ii the mud flat rxar IJigby. Although he was seventy four years old. In -till had good arm for a stern paddle, and, while ALEXANDER H. LEIGHTON, M.D..ACL the clams thumped into the basket, I attempted to worm my way into his friendship by means of pleasantries and a moderate bribe of tobacco. In the evenings that followed, I sat beside him on. the door step of his hut, and, with the aid of marks made in the dust by a twig, we planned the film. Matthew's wife, Mary, his stepson, Joseph Lewis, and the latter's family were also present and contributed ideas. Joseph Lewis was particularly helpful in offering practical suggestions and in acting as an interpreter when the old man's English was inadequate. Since I wished to make a color film that would preserve permanently a dying craft, my primary interest was in accuracy; but this accuracy in its most liberal meaning included capturing the beauty of the land and sea as faithfully as possible. Here is the plan that was finally evolved. Opening scenes reveal the coast of the Bay of Fundy on a pleasant summer day, and a young Indian is seen looking out over the water from a cliff top. Adjacent is an Indian summer encampment, where old and young are making baskets, tending the fire, playing games, building canoes and whittling toys out of wood. The Indian on the cliff top gazes intently at a spot in the bay, where a school of porpoises are leaping. He hurries through the woods down to the camp and urges an old man to come porpoise hunting with him. The latter agrees, picks up his porpoise spear and the two of them set off in a birch bark canoe far out into the bay. Various shots give an impression of the coast, the open space and the sea, as well as of the Indians searching for the porpoises. There are several views of the porpoises approaching closer and of the Indians turning and paddling after them. The young man fires a shot and then, as the canoe slides up to the struggling animal, he transfixes it with his spear. The porpoise is passed back to the old man in the stern, who skilfully pulls it over the side without even tipping the canoe, much less upsetting it. They rest for a moment and then return to the cove where the young man's wife and children come down to greet them. The porpoise is thrown out on the beach and is skinned where it lies. With the skin comes the thick blubber, which they carry, with certain choice cuts of the meat, back to the camp, and, while the blubber is hung up to dry, the meat is salted for eating. A day or so later, the blubber is cut up in inch cubes and boiled in a large pot. When it is cool, the old man pours it into a keg and carries it off to sell in a neighboring town. He tries to dispose of it to the blacksmith and the tinsmith and finally takes it to a filling sta [Continued on page 194]