Historical information

City of Portland Collection|Kurtze Museum|19/4/2000.
Once a whale was killed and its blubber was cut up and hauled aboard the ship for processing, the chunks of flesh were moved around the slippery vessel with long-handled, two-tined blubber forks. These forks were used to pitch the pieces of minced blubber into the hot try-pots to boil it down into oil. The long handles prevented sore backs from too much bending over and protected the men from getting too close to the boiling oil. (taken from Smithsonian Museum)

Significance

Whaling

Physical description

Two pronged utensil, painted with glossy black paint. An attempt to repair handle, short stem of handle rivetted onto handle sleeve.