By the 1530s, Basque whalers from ports like Bayonne and San Sebastián had established seasonal whaling stations in the Strait of Belle Isle, between Labrador and Newfoundland. These crews developed advanced techniques for hunting the bowhead and right whales, rendering their oil for lighting and their baleen for various uses. The Basque whaling industry was one of the earliest and most sophisticated commercial fisheries in the North Atlantic, predating the English and French cod fisheries. The whaling stations, such as those at Red Bay, were among the first European settlements in North America.

Basque whaling is commemorated in the region's oral poetry and folk songs, which recount the dangerous voyages and the skilled harpooners' exploits. The whaling stations also appear in the travel narratives of the period, inspiring poetic descriptions of the rugged Labrador coast. The Basque whalers' legacy has been celebrated in modern Canadian poetry that explores the early European presence in the New World.