Lot #75: Vintage Indigenous Whalebone Fisherman Sculpture Artist Signed Norman Young

     Norman can most often be found in his workshop near his home in Griquet, a seaside community in northern Newfoundland, where he turns whalebone into carvings of bears, whales, birds and other works of art.Norman started carving in 1969 but continued fishing until he turned 30, then he turned his life-long hobby into fulltime employment. In the earlier years, Norman worked with local soapstone but in later years he spend most of his time working in whalebone and Moose a n t l e r as his medium.Whale b o n e was collected over the last 40 years by walking the shorelines of Newfoundland where the sea would wash it up on shore, very much like driftwood. The b o n e has to be at least 50 to 150 years old to be weathered enough to work with. The vertebra and rib b o n e s are very porous with a hard outer shell, which is great for larger carvings and the jawbone is white and solid and polishes quite nicely. He uses this material to make pins, earrings and other smaller carvings from.a n t l e r from moose and caribou are also used and is found in the back country where they are shed every year or collected from local moose hunters.