Located on the shores of the Kiah Inlet at Twofold Bay, the Davidson Whaling Station was the longest-operating shore-based whaling station in Australia and the last of its type to close down.

​

The Davidson Whaling Station operated from 1826 through to 1932. Three generations of Davidson’s worked on the shore based whaling station. They were the only whalers in the world to work in partnership with killer whales (orcas). I will explain more about this in ‘law of the tongue’.  

​

Alexander Walker Davidson built the whaling station with equipment he purchased from Ben Boyd’s earlier whaling business that had collapsed.

​

 The Davidson's used green coloured boats based on the green of the traditional Scottish Davidson tartan but many believed that it was because of the green colour that the killer whales could tell their boats from the other whalers.

 

The Davidson whalers used non-motorized boats and no guns because it upset the killer whales and that is why its thought that the killer whales only helped the Davidson's.

​

The Davidsons would only catch about 8 whales a year, which were processed for their oil, baleen and bone. With their level of operation and it was likely to have had little impact on whale numbers. They basically only caught what the killer whales were naturally hunting.

​

The cottage ‘Loch Garra’ which is still standing in the Ben Boyd National Park was built by George Davidson in 1896. George Davidson and his family lived in it until 1945.

​

​

​

​

The process of killing a whale

​

First the killer whales would spot a whale and then they would go down the bay to wake up the whalers by slapping their tail on the water this is what the whalers called flop-tailing.

The whalers would get in their small green-hulled whaling boat. After that they headed in to the rough sea with their handheld weapons. whilst that was happening the killer whales were herding the whale down to where the whalers are and stopping the whale from going elsewhere.

After the whale was near the whale they would harpoon it until it died. After it died they would attach a buoy to it and the next day they would come back for it with the killer whales and old tom would pull it back to the station using a metal rope.

 

After they were at the station they would flense it, which is removing the thick layer of blubber, they would boil the blubber in boiling water until the oil rises to the top and boiled over into metal tanks and put in barrels ready for shipment.

​

​

​

​

Old tom finds “young Jack”

​

George Davidson was known as “Fearless George” because he survived several boat swamping’s and capsizes and there were even stories of the time he rode on a whale’s back when his boat was lifted from the water by an enormous humpback whale.

​

Jack Davidson, who was George’s son was not as lucky even though he was an experienced whaler by the time he reached his mid-teens.

 

He was crossing the Kiah inlet bar with his wife and children on the night October 24 1926 when their boat capsized. His wife Anne managed to grab on to the boat but Jack and his children drowned. They found the bodies of the two children but could not find Jack. Old tom, the killer whale had been seen circling one area but it wasn’t until a few days later that jacks body was found where old tom had been circling.