Historical information

Part of collection purchased from Brendan Kurtze by the City of Portland.
Whaling industry

Physical description

Whaling implement, iron, painted gloss black, 2 prongs, short section of handle riveted into handle sleeve.
The blubber fork was used to transfer sliced pieces of blubber, called "bible leaves", into the try pots for rendering or boiling it into oil.
Bible leaves were thrown into the trypots with a blubber fork or blubber pike and heated until the whale oil tried out from them, much like the grease coming from bacon as it cooks. Care had to be taken not to burn the oil, but to be certain that all oil was extracted from the bible leaves.