Josiah Nickerson Knowles
	
Josiah Knowles was born in Cape Cod and was a successful merchant skipper and later a whaling agent before he became manager of the Pacific Steam Whaling Company and its associated Arctic Oil Works. Knowles was an innovating force in the company and established shore-based whaling and trading stations on the Arctic coast.((John R. Bockstoce, //Steam Whaling in the Western Arctic.// New Bedford: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1977: 28, 30.))
	
George Leavitt was the manager of the Pacific Steam Whaling Company's shore station at Point Barrow [Nuvuk] in 1889. He believed reports of whales in the Beaufort Sea and boarded the //Grampus// for San Francisco before he heard a substantiating story from the captains of the //Orca// and //Thrasher.// His goal was to convince Knowles, the company's managing agent, to send him back with a ship to winter at Herschel Island.((John R. Bockstoce, //Whales, Ice & Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic.// Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986: 259-60, 267-68, 275.)) 

Leavitt was given a ship in 1893. After the //Mary D. Hume// and the //Grampus// returned with record whale catches, Knowles and his partners outfitted four steamers, the //Balaena, Grampus, Narwhal// and the //Newport,// for wintering at Herschel. Knowles ordered other steamers to cruise to Cape Bathurst and planned to use Herschel Island as an Arctic advance base. The whaleships would meet the company tenders there with food, supplies and fresh crews and send back whalebone and crew on furlough.((John R. Bockstoce, //Whales, Ice & Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic.// Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986: 259-60, 267-68, 275.))  

As early as 1892 Knowles was searching for another winter harbour closer to Cape Bathurst. The //Mary D. Hume// and the //Newport// stayed in the Arctic for six consecutive seasons. In 1893, 286 whales were taken east of Herschel and the //Narwha//l and the //Balaena// took more than fifty each - a seasonal record. During the winter of 1893 Knowles had five ships in Herschel Island’s Pauline Cove: //Balaena, Grampus, Narwhal, Newport// and //Mary D. Hume.// The Roth Blum Company, meat packers from San Francisco, sent up the //Jeanette// and the //Karluk.//((John R. Bockstoce, //Whales, Ice & Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic.// Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986: 259-60, 267-68, 275.))

This was the last refuge of the bowhead whales and 1893 was the peak catch for the whalers. In 1894, fifteen ships arrived to winter at Herschel Island. Herschel's heyday as a whaling station was from 1890 to approximately 1908.((John R. Bockstoce, //Whales, Ice & Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic.// Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986: 259-60, 267-68, 275.))