The story of women in whaling in Albany

Jo Wassell recalls a moment that’s stayed with her since she first visited Albany’s Historic Whaling Station — one anybody else who’s been there will surely recognise.

“I remember audibly gasping when I walked around the corner and saw that huge whale skeleton,” she says. “I knew they were big, but …”

It’s quite telling, that trailing off into wordlessness, given the feathery tenderness and historical heft of everything Jo discovered over the following months — and the powerful portraits that emerged.

The Albany local is the first of three artists-in-residence across Albany’s bicentenary year as part of the Historic Whaling Station’s special program marking the anniversary.

The result of her residency is Women in Whaling: an exhibition featuring five large charcoal portraits of women whose lives were shaped by the station before it closed in 1978. These are accompanied by smaller drawings of places, possessions and memories frozen in monochrome.

The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company was established in 1952 at Frenchman Bay. What began as a humpback operation later shifted to hunting sperm whales. For nearly three decades, it anchored Albany’s economy and community. Then operations ceased — “so suddenly, without warning,” as Jo puts it — leaving the community stunned.

The stories of the men who left their steam-powered whale chasers berthed at the Albany Town Jetty for the last time, thus ending 178 years of whaling in the region, have been duly documented. What of the stories of the women who waited each night for the men’s safe return?

Gallery co-ordinator Racquel Cavallaro, who invited Jo to undertake the residency, is candid about the gap in the historical record. “The stories of the whalers and the whaling industry were told,” she says, “but the stories of the women were missing — and these stories needed to be told in order to have a complete story.”

One of those stories, she recounts, is of a woman who waited on the end of the jetty every night for her husband’s return, often in the cold and rain. “I can picture her,” Racquel says simply. “These stories are important because they are the stories of our humanity.”

Jo found that humanity not just in archives but in kitchens and living rooms as she sat with her subjects, listening and looking intently, translating their stories into lines of a different kind.

Perhaps her day job in the disability sector attunes Jo’s senses to the person behind the face? She agrees that drawing is the medium closest to her because of its intimacy and immediacy: “You’re literally just putting charcoal on paper.”

There’s a story that’s lodged in Jo’s memory. Marian Reeby, whose husband worked aboard one of the whale-chaser vessels, described scanning the harbour as the boats rounded in. Like many of the other women, she could identify the men just by their silhouettes and their gait.

On one occasion, the fleet returned with the knowledge that someone on watch had died. Marian, reading the familiar shapes against the twilight glow, knew her husband was safe.

It’s exactly this kind of embodied knowledge which swims just below the surface of official records that Jo’s carbon attempts to capture.

When the women saw their portraits for the first time at the opening, some were tearful. “It can be quite daunting, seeing very big portraits of yourself,” Jo admits. “But they dealt with it so gracefully. They were inspiring.”

Racquel’s curatorial strategy across the bicentenary is encapsulated in “Reflect, Respect, Reactivate” – connecting with the past, celebrating the present, embracing the future.

Women in Whaling ticks all three boxes, allowing a new generation to share in the stories of a past whose representatives are still very much with us. For the families of the five women, seeing a mother or grandmother portrayed with such empathy and skill by Jo must be nothing short of a revelation.

+ Women in Whaling supported by the City of Albany is on display at Albany’s Historic Whaling Station gallery until Sunday May 31, 2026. Open 9am to 5pm daily. discoverybay.com.au