Albatross: This ship was 210 tons and 107 ft long, and was built in Svelvik, Norway in 1921 as a whale catcher, but was later converted to sealing.

Albatross

Dias: This boat is an historically important vessel. She was built as a steam trawler in Beverly, England in 1906, and was originally called the Viola. She was 108 ft long and 167 tons. At first she worked out of Hull, but during the First World War she was commandeered for minesweeping and patrol duties in the North Sea. After the war she was sold to Norwegian owners and renamed Kapduen and became one of the first Norwegian trawlers.

Abandoned side by side.

After a few years she was converted to a whale catcher at Sandefjord, Norway and arrived at Gritviken in 1927 where she was employed as a whale catcher and then a sealer until 1964. She even served as a supply vessel for relieving the Argentine weather station on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys.

Dias

Whalecatcher Petrel.

The whale catcher Petrel (245 tons and 115 ft) was built in Oslo, Norway in 1928. She was one of the first whale catchers to have a catwalk so that the gunner could run from the bridge to the harpoon gun. She was converted for sealing in 1956 and the gun and catwalk removed. (the gun on it now is a recent addition). Each summer the Petrel visited the beaches around South Georgia and collected the cargo’s of seal blubber.

Petrel with part of the floating dock showing.

Gritviken (the word is Swedish for Pot Cove) is the principle settlement in the UK territory of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. It was so named by a 1902 Swedish surveyor who found four old English try pots used to render seal oil at the site.

The abandoned whaleing station.

It is the best harbour on the island, consisting of a bay, ,King Edward Cove,within a bay, Cumberland East bay. The site is very sheltered, provides a substantial area of flat land suitable for building on, and has a good supply of fresh water.

One of the Try pots found at the original settlement.

The settlement at Gritviken was established on November 16, 1904, by the Norwegian sea captain Carl Anton Larson as a whaling station for his company The Argentine Fishing Company. It was extremely successful with 195 whales taken in the first season alone. The whaler’s utilized every part of the animals. The blubber, meat, bones and viscera were cooked to extract the oil and the bones and meat were turned into fertilizer and fodder.

Looking out from the abandoned whaling station.

Elephant seals were also hunted for their blubber. Around three hundred men worked at the station during its heyday, operating during the southern summer from October to march. A few remained over the winter to maintain the boats and factory. Every few months a transport ship would bring essential supplies to the station and take away the oil and other produce. The following year the Argentine Government established a meteorological station.

Carl Larson

Carl Larson the founder of Gritviken was a naturalized Briton born in Sandefjord, Norway and he had his wife, three daughters and two sons with him at the whaling station. As the manager of the Company, Larson organized the building of Gritviken, a remarkable undertaking accomplished by a team of sixty Norwegians since their arrival on 16 November until the newly built whale oil factory commenced production on 24 December 1904. Larson chose the whaling station’s site during his 1902 visit whilst in command of the ship ‘Antarctic’ of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901-1903) led by Otto Nordenskjold.

Fur seal (they hunted these).

On that occasion, the name Gritviken was given by the Swedish archaeologist John Gunnar Andersson who surveyed part of Thatcher Peninsular and found numerous artefacts from sealers including several try pots that were used to boil the seal oil.

King penguin.

Managers and other senior officers of the whaling stations often lived together with their families. Amongst their offspring was Solveig Jacobson who had the distinction of being the first child ever to be born in Antarctica on 8 October 1903.

Small elephant seals (hunted these as well).

Remains of the ovens for boiling the blubber.

The whale population in the sea’s around Gritviken was substantially reduced over the following sixty years until the station was closed in December 1966 by which time the whale stocks were so reduced that it became uneconomical. Some estimate that in that time over sixty thousand whales were destroyed. Even today the shore around Gritviken is littered with whale bones and the rusting remains of the whale oil processing plants and the abandoned whaling ships.

I have always wanted to go to Gritviken, as it is were the great Polar explorer, Shackleton is buried (see my article about him in the Tombstones section.) Also the abandoned whaling station is very evocative of those (not so) far off days. That sort of existance seems a world away from me popping in on my cruise ship.

Elephant seal by rotting workboat.

All around are the rusting remains of old processing plants and of course the wrecks of the old whalecatchers. The area also abounds with elephant seals, fur seals, penguins and a huge amount of birds.

Gritviken, nestling at the foot of the mountains.

Its a stunning place with dramatic scenery. We were here in the summer with only small ice bergs in the bay. But in winter we would have been lucky to get ashore, as the ice comes right out and the buildings are almost buried in the snow.

Gritviken overview

The Whalecatchers Albatross and Dias

The Petrel

Floating Dock

Actually this is now resting on the bottom but shows quite clearly. The dock was built in 1928. The idea was that she went out to the whale catchers in the bay and they towed the whale carcasses onto the partly submerged dock.

The Floating Dock.

This was then towed back to the slip where the whale was dragged of with heavy hooks and chains and cut up on the slip. Made the whole process of unloading quicker, and let the Catch boats get back to the whales.

Carving the whale up on the slip.

Gives you some idea of the size of these whales.