William Ormond (born 2 March 1860 in Stirling, Scotland; died 14 March 1953 in Alameda, California)
kept this journal while serving aboard the whaling ship S.S. Karluk.
The Journal
According to a footnote on the first page of the journal (page 6 of the scan), Ormond joined the
Karluk on 6 December 1892. The voyage began on 1 April 1893, departing San Francisco, and he left the
ship on 26 October 1894.
These records were digitized by his great great grandson, Charles William Ormond von Tagen. Scanning and
transcription were assisted by the generative AI model ChatGPT 5.2. Every effort was made to verify the
transcription against the original pages, but errors may still be present.
Voyage Timeline
6 Dec 1892 Ormond joins the S.S. Karluk.
1 Apr 1893 The voyage departs San Francisco.
26 Oct 1894 Ormond leaves the Karluk.
The S.S. Karluk
The whaling ship in the journal is the S.S. Karluk, likely the same vessel later known as HMCS/CGS Karluk,
infamous for the 1913 Arctic expedition. This journal covers an earlier whaling period, but the ship
profile remains the same: built in 1884 at Matthew Turner's shipyard in Benicia, California, she measured
129 ft in length with a 23 ft beam, and 321 gross register tonnage. She sailed with a 150 hp auxiliary
coal-fired compound steam engine and, in 1892, was converted for whaling with 2-inch Australian ironwood
sheathing. Karluk completed 14 whaling trips, the last in 1911.
The images below gather historic photographs of the Karluk and the whaling era in which Ormond's journal
was written. They provide the visual context for the ship, her rigging, and the people who worked aboard.
Karluk in her whaling configuration.Dockside view of the S.S. Karluk.Crew on deck during a whaling season.A period photograph from the Karluk era.
