 Captains of the whaling ships (first sail, and later steam powered) would leave San Francisco in early summer, then whale in the Beaufort Sea for as long as the season would allow (generally eight or ten weeks) before new ice set in in September.Then they would go into winter quarters at Herschel Island, Canada.By early the next summer, as soon as the ice broke, the whaling vessels would depart the Herschel with their catch from the previous year, which they would transport to San Francisco via the Bering Strait.