Maybe Ahab's leg is in there somewhere, too.

Tales like this surface occasionally - I remember citing one in a whaling talk we used to do. Whales are seriously long-lived. That, and harpoons like this one weren't designed to be killing instruments - just fishhooks. The idea was to embed the point of the weapon under the whale's skin, then 'play' the whale as you would a large game fish until it was exhausted. The final kill was done at close range with a long, bayonet-like lance which would cut up the arteries near the blowhole.

That's totally awesome. Not that the whale's dead, but everything else about it.

Yeah, I was sad about the whaley-whale too.

But I had no idea they could live so long! I thought the bigger the creature, the shorter the lifespan (sorta like dogs).

I've heard similar things have been found in turtles, like a musket ball embedded in a snapping turtle shell.

What a neat find. I have a book called "One Whaling Family", the real life diary of a woman on her husband's ship for two years as they hunted whales. She gave birth to two babies on board the ship (both survived to adulthood). The work that went into whaling gave me a new perspective, even though just the thought of killing whales saddens me. But their story happened over a hundred years ago, and now to hear about a whale who survived so long, well, it's rather intriguing.