1 In this article, I use the term ‘fishermen’ when referring to people who performed fishing as an occupation at the turn of the last century. Women also lived in these villages, but they were, with few exceptions, not allowed on board the fishing boats, where most interactions with whales occurred. The women carried out important duties in the context of village life: for example, repairing fishing nets, tilling crop fields, and raising children. However, as they seem to not have been present during the riots or in the preceding public debates, I have decided to use the traditional term. See also Trevor A. Branch and Danika Kleiber, ‘Should We Call Them Fishers or Fishermen?’, Fish and Fisheries 18, no. 1 (2017): 114–27.

2 Tommy Bredal, Hvalfangsten og opprøret i Mehamn anno 1903 (Whaling and Uprising in Mehamn in 1903) (Akerhus: Koppmolla As, 2006), 16–25.

3 Masami Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin (The Hachinohe Bay ‘Whale Incident’ and the Fishermen) (Hachinohe: Hachinoheura ‘Kujira Jiken’ to Gyomin Kenkō Iinkai, 2011), 40. See also Lars Schladitz, ‘Die Bedeutungen von Walen im späten Meiji-Japan: Gleichzeitigkeit und Konflikte’, in Umweltgeschichte in globaler Perspektive: Vorlesungsreihe Sommersemester 2010 (2013).

4 See, for example, Masayuki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki, The History and Science of Whales (Japan Times, 2004); Katsuaki Morita, Kujira to hogei no bunkashi (The Cultural History of Whales and Whaling) (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 1994); J. N. Tønnessen and A. O. Johnsen, The History of Modern Whaling (London; Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982).

5 For literature on protests against the industrialization of fisheries, see David L. Howell, Capitalism from Within: Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Richard W. Judd, ‘Grass-Roots Conservation in Eastern Coastal Maine: Monopoly and the Moral Economy of Weir Fishing, 1893-1911’, Environmental Review: ER 12, no. 2 (1988): 81–103; Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

6 Carl J. Griffin and Iain J.M. Robertson, ‘Elvers and Salmon: Moral Ecologies and Conflict on the Nineteenth-Century Severn’, in The New Coastal History: Cultural and Environmental Perspectives from Scotland and Beyond, ed. David Worthington (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 99–116; Karl Jacoby, Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Brian Payne, ‘Local Economic Stewards: The Historiography of the Fishermen’s Role in Resource Conservation’, Environmental History 18, no. 1 (2013): 29–43.

7 Harry D. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity, History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Harry Harootunian, History’s Disquiet: Modernity, Cultural Practice, and the Question of Everyday Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). See also Ryūichi Abé, ‘Modernity’, in Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, ed. Donald S. Lopez Jr (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 315. The term ‘modernity’ has recently come under criticism for being ahistorical: see Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

8 For more on fishermen’s knowledge, see Sandra Grant and Fikret Berkes, ‘Fisher Knowledge as Expert System: A Case from the Longline Fishery of Grenada, the Eastern Caribbean’, Fisheries Research 84, no. 2 (2007): 162–70.

9 Eldrid Mageli, ‘Norwegian–Japanese Whaling Relations in the Early 20th Century’, Scandinavian Journal of History 31, no. 1 (2006): 1–16.

10 Ryōichi Satō, Kujira kaisha yakiuchi jiken (Setting Afire the Whale Company) (Tokyo: Saimaru Shuppankai, 1987), 48.

11 Meisei Sekizawa, ‘Hogei to nishinryō no kankei ikan’ (‘Is There a Connection between Whaling and Herring Fishing?’), Dai-Nihon suisan kaihō (The Journal of the Fisheries Society of Japan) (January 1888).

12 Sigrid Alvestad, ‘Opposition to Whaling in Scotland and Ireland before WWI’, in Whaling and History II: New Perspectives, ed. Jan Erik Ringstad (Sandefjord: Sandefjordmuseene, 2006), 137–46; Tønnessen and Johnsen, History of Modern Whaling, 82.

13 Lena Johanne Brune, Hvalfangst gjennom tidene – Norske områder og norske aktører (Whaling through the Ages: Norwegian Areas and Players) (Gamvik: Gamvik Museum, 2009), 16–18; Jens Christian Hansen, ‘Coastal Finnmark, Norway: The Transformation of a European Resource Periphery’, European Urban and Regional Studies 6, no. 4 (1999): 347–8; Knut Bjørn Lindkvist, ‘Norwegian Fisheries and the Basis of Regional Development’, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift 50, no. 3–4 (1996): 171–2.

14 Fredrik Barth, ed., The Role of the Entrepreneur in Social Change in Northern Norway (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1963); Hansen, ‘Coastal Finnmark, Norway’; Lindkvist, ‘Norwegian Fisheries’; Ragnar Nilsen, ‘Rural Modernisation as National Development: The Norwegian Case 1900–1950’, Norwegian Journal of Geography 68, no. 1 (2014): 50–8.

15 Einar Niemi, ‘Modern Whaling on the Norwegian Arctic Coast: Origin, Development and the Local Society’, in Whaling and History: Perspectives on the Evolution of the Industry, ed. Bjørn I. Basberg, Jan Erik Ringstad, and Einar Wexelsen (Sandefjord: Kommander Chr. Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum, 1993), 68–72; Tønnessen and Johnsen, History of Modern Whaling, 26–32.

16 Niemi, ‘Modern Whaling on the Norwegian Arctic Coast’, 75–6.

17 Tønnessen and Johnsen, History of Modern Whaling, 55–63.

18 Storting, Stortingsforhandlinger 1879 (Parliamentary Proceedings 1879), vol. 28 (Del 5) (Kristiania: Centraltrykkeriet, 1879), 431–2, document 31.

19 Vera Schwach, ‘The Sea Around Norway: Science, Resource Management, and Environmental Concerns, 1860–1970’, Environmental History 18, no. 1 (2013): 101–10.

20 Ibid., 101–4.

21 Petter Holm, ‘Crossing the Border: On the Relationship Between Science and Fishermen’s Knowledge in a Resource Management Context’, Maritime Studies 2, no. 1 (2003): 5–33.

22 Kristin Asdal and Bård Hobæk, ‘Assembling the Whale: Parliaments in the Politics of Nature’, Science as Culture 25, no. 1 (2016): 96–116.

23 Cited in Johan Hjort, Fiskeri og hvalfangst i det nordlige Norge (Fishing and Whaling in Northern Norway) (Bergen: John Griegs Forlag, 1902), 203.

24 Vera Schwach, ‘A Sea Change: Johan Hjort and the Natural Fluctuations in the Fish Stocks’, ICES Journal of Marine Science 71, no. 8 (2014): 1993–4. Johan Hjort was one of three members of the Fishery Board (1900–06) and the first director of the Directorate of Fisheries (1906–17), and he was involved in scientific investigations on Antarctic whaling. See D. Graham Burnett, The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012); Didrik Dyrdal, ‘“Whaling and the Extermination of the Great Whale”: Norwegian and British Debate about Whale Stocks in Antarctica, 1913–1939’, Environment and History 25, no. 1 (2019): 87–115; Vera Schwach, ‘HJORT, Johan’, in Norsk biografisk leksikon: Halvorsen–Ibsen, ed. Kunnskapsforlaget, vol. 4 (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget, 2001), 291–2.

25 A. O. Johnsen, Den moderne hvalfangsts historie. Oprinnelse og utvikling. Finnmarksfangstens historie 1864–1905 (The History of Modern Whaling: Origin and Development. Fishing History of Finnmark 1864–1905), vol. 1 (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co, 1959), 579–85.

26 See also Jennifer Hubbard, ‘Mediating the North Atlantic Environment: Fisheries Biologists, Technology, and Marine Spaces’, Environmental History 18, no. 1 (2013): 88–100; Vera Schwach and Jennifer Hubbard, ‘Johan Hjort and the Birth of Fisheries Biology: The Construction and Transfer of Knowledge, Approaches and Attitudes, Norway and Canada, 1890–1920’, Studia Atlantica 13 (2009): 22–41.

27 Hjort, Fiskeri og hvalfangst, 203–10.

28 Ibid., 211.

29 Ibid., 223.

30 Johnsen, Den moderne hvalfangsts historie, 1:594–5.

31 From an article in the Nordlys, cited in ibid., 1:594–5.

32 See Storting, Stortingsforhandlinger 1902/1903 (Parliamentary Proceedings 1902/1903), vol. 52 (Del 3) (Kristiania: Centraltrykkeriet, 1903), 77, Ot. prp. nr. 27 Bilag.

33 Ibid., 78.

34 Ibid., 79.

35 Ibid .

36 Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology, 4th ed. (New York, London: Routledge, 2018), 203–22; Grant and Berkes, ‘Fisher Knowledge as Expert System’.

37 Johnsen, Den moderne hvalfangsts historie, 1:606–8.

38 Jens Petter Nielsen, ‘The Old Russia and the New Norway (1905–1917): Neighbourliness without Fear?’, Acta Borealia 11, no. 1 (1994): 19–36.

39 Bredal, Hvalfangsten, 36.

40 ‘Oprøret i Finnmarken’ (‘Uprising in Finnmark’), Nordlys, 6 December 1903.

41 Gamvik Museum, ‘Whaling through the Ages’, https://www.kystmuseene.no/whaling-through-the-ages.4645204-109811.html.

42 Sigurd Risting, Av hvalfangstens historie (Whaling History) (Kristiania: J.W. Cappelen, 1922), 158.

43 See Storting, Stortingsforhandlinger 1903/1904 (Parliamentary Proceedings 1903/1904), vol. 53 (Del 2) (Kristiania: Centraltrykkeriet, 1904), St. prp. nr. 71.

44 Alvestad, ‘Opposition to Whaling’.

45 Fridtjof Aalton, Der Walfischfang Norwegens unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Bedeutung für die norwegische Volkswirtschaft (Düsseldorf: Weickert & Koblo, 1928), 18–20; Tønnessen and Johnsen, History of Modern Whaling, 227–9.

46 For a historical account of whaling in Taiji, see Naoki Wada, ‘Whaling, Culture and Traditions in Taiji’, in The 1st Summit of Japanese Traditional Whaling Communities: Nagato, Yamaguchi (Nagato: The Institute of Cetacean Research, 2003), 79–91. For the present-day debate regarding dolphin drives, see Jay Alabaster, ‘News Coverage of Taiji’s Dolphin Hunts: Media Framing and the Birth of a Global Prohibition Regime’, Asian Journal of Journalism and Media Studies, no. 1 (2017): 45–73; The Cove, documentary directed by Louie Psihoyos (Lionsgate, 2009).

47 Ryan Tucker Jones, ‘Running into Whales: The History of the North Pacific from Below the Waves’, American Historical Review 118, no. 2 (2013): 349–77; Alan Longhurst, Ecological Geography of the Sea (London: Academic Press, 1998), 1417–22.

48 Takao Kojima, Kujira to nihonjin no monogatari. Engan hogei saikō (The Story of the Whales and the Japanese: Reconsidering Coastal Whaling) (Tokyo: Tōkyō Shoten, 2009), 114–17, 177–9.

49 Jakobina Arch, Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), 9–10.

50 Morikuni Itabashi, Kita no hogeiki (Records of Northern Whaling) (Sapporo-shi: Hokkaidō Shimbunsha, 1989), 72–5.

51 Sekizawa, ‘Hogei to nishinryō no kankei ikan’, 21.

52 Ibid.

53 Meisei Sekizawa, ‘Rokoku hogei kaisha setsuritsu no kyo wo kite kan ari’ (‘About the Establishment of Russian Whaling Companies’), Dai-Nihon suisan kaihō (December 1887).

54 Eisuke Kaminaga, ‘Hokutō Ajia ni okeru kindai hogeigyō no reimei’ (‘The Dawn of Modern Whaling in Northeast Asia’), ed. Hokkaidō daigaku surabu kenkyū sentā, Surawu kenkyū (Slavic Studies) 49 (2002): 53–8; Robert Neff, ‘Russian Whaling in Korea’, Jeju Weekly, 27 June 2011, http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=1708.

55 Kiichi Akashi, Honpō no noruē-shiki hogeishi (The History of Norwegian-Style Whaling in Japan) (Osaka: Tōyō Hogei, 1910), 205–6; Masayuki Okamura, Kujira to hogei no monogatari (The Story of Whales and Whaling) (Nagato: Fujimitsu Kabushiki Kaisha, 2006).

56 Kaminaga, ‘Hokutō Ajia ni okeru kindai hogeigyō no reimei’, 74–5.

57 Mageli, ‘Norwegian–Japanese Whaling Relations’, 6.

58 Utenriksdepartementet (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), ‘32/07 Japan (Tokio) 1907’, RA/S-2259/Dd/L1002, 1907, 07, Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway), Oslo.

59 ‘Zenkoku hogei gyōsha daikai’ (‘The General Assembly of the Nationwide Whalers’), Dai-Nihon suisan kaihō (October 1907).

60 Akashi, Honpō no noruē-shiki hogeishi, 276–8; Tønnessen and Johnsen, History of Modern Whaling, 142. The smaller companies from the old whaling towns in Kii and Tosa could not be convinced to join, however, as the old whaling families from these regions were not willing to work with ‘outsiders’. Moreover, they could rely on local consumer markets that would buy their whale meat. Some other smaller companies were integrated later into Tōyō Hogei: see Yoshikazu Ishida, Nihon gyominshi (History of the Japanese Fishermen) (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobō, 1978), 99–100.

61 Isao Kondō, Nihon engan hogei no kōbō (Rise and Fall of Japanese Coastal Whaling) (Kokubunji-shi: Sanyōsha, 2001), 291.

62 Akashi, Honpō no noruē-shiki hogeishi, 242; Kazuo Ayabe, ‘Noruē-shiki hogei ni taisuru gojin no kibō’ (‘My Hopes Regarding Norwegian Whaling’), Dai-Nihon suisan kaihō (1910), 3; Shishiku Ōno, ‘Chōshi monogatari (Stories of Chōshi)’, Bungei kurabu (1907).

63 Kondō, Nihon engan hogei no kōbō, 291.

64 Isao Kamagasawa, Kinsei Sanriku no iwashi ami no hattatsu (Development of the Sardine Net in Early Modern Sanriku) (Miyako: Kamagasawa Aiko, 2008).

65 Akira Miyashita, Katsuobushi (Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Shuppan Kyoku, 2000).

66 Seigo Yamane, Hachinohe no gyogyō. Kindaihen (Fishing in Hachinohe) (Hachinohe: Hachinohe Shiritsu Toshokan Shishi Hensanshitsu, 2006), 12–14.

67 Taneyasu Shōbuke, Nanbu mukashi gatari. Rekishi to densetsu (Old Stories of Nanbu: History and Legends) (Hachinohe: Ikichi Shoin, 2009), 181–2.

68 ‘Dai-Nihon hogei kaisha no kikaku’ (‘The Plans of the Dai-Nihon Hogei Company’), Ōnan Shimpō (Ōnan News), 10 April 1909.

69 ‘Gyomin no chinjō shotei shutsu’ (Putting Forward the Fishermen’s Petition’), Ōnan Shimpō, 10 April 1909.

70 Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin, 35–6.

71 ‘Hogei mondai ni tsuite’ (‘About the Whaling Problem’), Ōnan Shimpō, 13 April 1909.

72 Ibid .

73 Cited in ‘Dai-Nihon hogei kaisha no kikaku’.

74 Interestingly, there is an old proverb in western Japan that ‘one whale will make seven villages flourish’. Here, an almost opposite meaning is attached: see Heisen Ōtsuki, Geishikō (Draft on Whale History), ed. Shinichi Ōya (Tokyo: Kowa Shuppan, 1976), 519.

75 ‘Dai-Nihon hogei kaisha no kikaku’.

76 ‘Maehama no gyomin no daigekikaku’ (‘Intensification for the Maehama Fishermen’), Ōnan Shimpō, 22 June 1909.

77 Ibid .

78 Ishida, Nihon gyominshi, 246–8.

79 Ōnan Shimpō, 4 July 1909, cited in Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin, 419.

80 Ibid .

81 Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin, 37–8.

82 Fynn Holm, ‘Living with the Gods of the Sea: Anti-Whaling Movements in Northeast Japan, 1600–1912’ (PhD diss., University of Zurich, 2020), chap. 3.

83 Ishida, Nihon gyominshi, 265.

84 Satō, Kujira kaisha yakiuchi jiken, 32, 294.

85 Kondō, Nihon engan hogei no kōbō, 291–4; Hiroyuki Watanabe, Japan’s Whaling: The Politics of Culture in Historical Perspective, trans. Hugh Clarke (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2009), 64–5.

86 Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin, 141–2.

87 Satō, Kujira kaisha yakiuchi jiken, 32.

88 Kondō, Nihon engan hogei no kōbō, 294.

89 Satō, Kujira kaisha yakiuchi jiken, 23.

90 Ibid., 48.

91 Watanabe, Japan’s Whaling, 62.

92 Ishida, Nihon gyominshi, 315–22.

93 Iwaori, Hachinohe-ura ‘kujira jiken’ to gyomin, 141–7.

94 Watanabe, Japan’s Whaling, 69–71.

95 Ishida, Nihon gyominshi, 326–8.

96 Kushiro-shi sōmubu chiiki shiryō shitsuhen (Kushiro City Regional Archives), Kushiro hogeishi (Whaling History of Kushiro) (Kushiro: Kushiro-shi, 2006), 101–7.

97 Industrial whaling was conducted once again in Same-ura for a short time between 1947 and 1949: see Keijirō Maeda and Girō Teraoka, Hogei (Whaling) (Tokyo: Suisan shūhō shain satsubu, 1952), 111.

98 Watanabe, Japan’s Whaling, 70–2.

99 Alvestad, ‘Opposition to Whaling’, 145; Hachinohe shakai keizaishi kenkyūkai (Hachinohe Social and Economic History Research Association), Gaisetsu Hachinohe no rekishi (Outline of the History of Hachinohe), vol. 1 (Hachinohe: Hoppō Harua Kisha, 1962), 207; Johnsen, Den moderne hvalfangsts historie, 1:624.

100 Masayuki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki, The Truth behind the Whaling Dispute (Tokyo: Institute of Cetacean Research, 2001), 11; Ulf Lindstrøm, Sophie Smout, Daniel Howell, and Bjarte Bogstad, ‘Modelling Multi-Species Interactions in the Barents Sea Ecosystem with Special Emphasis on Minke Whales and Their Interactions with Cod, Herring and Capelin’, Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 56, no. 21 (2009): 2068–79; Joji Morishita, ‘What Is the Ecosystem Approach for Fisheries Management?’, Marine Policy 32, no. 1 (2008): 19–26; Tore Schweder, Gro S. Hagen, and Einar Hatlebakk, ‘Direct and Indirect Effects of Minke Whale Abundance on Cod and Herring Fisheries: A Scenario Experiment for the Greater Barents Sea’, NAMMCO Scientific Publishing 2 (2000): 120–33. Unsurprisingly, there also voices, mainly from non-whaling countries, who disagree with these assessments: Peter J. Corkeron, ‘Marine Mammals’ Influence on Ecosystem Processes Affecting Fisheries in the Barents Sea Is Trivial’, Biology Letters 5, no. 2 (2009): 204–6; James J. Ruzicka, John H. Steele, Tosca Ballerini, Sarah K.Gaichas, and David G. Ainlee, ‘Dividing up the Pie: Whales, Fish, and Humans as Competitors’, Progress in Oceanography 116 (2013): 207–19; Andrew W. Trites, Villy Christensen, and Daniel Pauly, ‘Competition between Fisheries and Marine Mammals for Prey and Primary Production in the Pacific Ocean’, Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science 22 (1997): 173–87.

101 Alvestad, ‘Opposition to Whaling’.

102 For more on regime shifts, see Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, Regime Shift: Fish and Climate Change (Sendai: Tohoku University Press, 2013). The collapse of near-coastal proto-industrial fishing shows many similarities to the collapse of industrial offshore fishing in the second half of the twentieth century: see Gregory Ferguson-Cradler, ‘Fisheries’ Collapse and the Making of a Global Event, 1950s–1970s’, Journal of Global History 13, no. 3 (2018): 399–424.

103 Robert Rocha, Phillip Clapham, and Yulia Ivashchenko, ‘Emptying the Oceans: A Summary of Industrial Whaling Catches in the 20th Century’, Marine Fisheries Review 76, no. 4 (2014): 37–48.

104 A. M. Springer, J. A. Estes, G. B. van Vliet, T. M. Williams, D. F. Doak, E. M. Danner, K. A. Forney, and B. Pfister, ‘Sequential Megafaunal Collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: An Ongoing Legacy of Industrial Whaling?’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100, no. 21 (2003): 12225.

105 For a detailed discussion of culturally learned behaviour among cetaceans, see Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins, Kindle ed. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

106 Thomas Mauch, ‘Norwegen: Schwimmen mit Orkas und Buckelwalen’, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 8 March 2015, https://www.br.de/br-fernsehen/sendungen/euroblick/norwegen-tiere-wale-100.html.