Fonds consists of ship's logs; Mate's log; Narrative logs; private logs; Workbook; Manuscripts.
Whaling Logs : Arctic whaling and sealing vessels operated out of Dundee, Scotland from ca. 1750-1912, the most active period being in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century when the city's jute industries provided a ready market for whale oil. During this time a number of the auxiliary steamers, either built on the River Tay or operating from Dundee Whales, acquired remarkable reputations as whalers and sealers, often captained by legendary figures. One or two such men, like William Adams Senior, and Henry McKay, had an unrivalled knowledge of active navigation and were instrumental in the forwarding of polar exploration.
Andrew Barclay Walker, owner of a famous steamer, the ESQUIMAUX, which frequently caught in excess of 20,000 seals per season on the Newfoundland grounds, used the vessel as an exploration tool in 1899 and published his account through the Liverpool Printing and Stationary Co. the following year under the title The Cruise of the ESQUIMAUX, steam whaler, to Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, April-October 1899 (96 p., illus.).