NOVA Online | Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance | Grytviken (October 28, 1999)

Grytviken
October 28, 1999
By Kelly Tyler

Location: Grytviken, South Georgia	Wind: 4.4 knots, N
Latitude: 54 degrees 17'S	Air Temp: 38°F
Longitude: 36 degrees 30'W	Water Temp: 41°F

For a man of action, the delay must have been maddening. With alarming reports of ice creeping northward, Shackleton had no choice but to mark time in Grytviken and wait for the onset of the austral summer. The departure of Endurance for the Antarctic was postponed for a month, but Shackleton had already been waiting for years. This was his third voyage to the Southern Ocean, and since he came within 97 miles of the Pole in 1909, he was intent on another bid. But the warnings of the whalers stayed him.

	Cumberland Bay, where our ship the Shuleykin rests at anchor (at right in photo), was once stained crimson with the blood of whales.

We, too, remain in Grytviken, filming the place where Endurance was last seen by anyone other than its crew. I slog through the snow between buildings, sometimes drifted seven feet high, hoping not to break through. It is a ghost town now, a huddled assemblage of ruddy metal buildings whistling with wind. There is an ambivalence about the place: Its heritage is celebrated in the South Georgia Whaling Museum close by, and the historic buildings bear placards explaining their former purpose. Yet they also bear signs warning visitors of the dangerous asbestos and unstable metalwork within, and forbid entry. During Shackleton's stay here in 1914, it was a prosperous community grateful for the industry that allowed a fragile human foothold in this harsh place. Yet it was also collection of charnel-houses, where whales were stripped of their blubber and flung back into the harbor, clogging its shores with tons of mutilated remains. Cumberland Bay, once so teeming with whales that their captors rarely ventured into the ocean beyond to catch them, is now quiet and its native species scarce.

Disused whale oil tanks betoken the booming trade of the early century.

Hulks of whaling ships hunker down in the harbor, their harpoon guns skewed heavenward. The Norwegian Petrel, built in 1928, saw some 30 years of service before being abandoned here. She is now a dock for a more elegant bird namesake, the Curlew, the sailboat belonging to the island's only longtime permanent residents, museum curators Tim and Pauline Carr. Petrel and the other whalers rotting here were eventually replaced by factory ships that caught and processed whales far out at sea.

When the station closed after 60 years, its residents seemed to have rushed out with every intention of returning. The tiny, austere church still houses a lending library of 19th-century volumes for whiling away the long winter nights. The boarding houses contain film hung for examination and books left open. But their owners never returned. Neither did the residents of South Georgia's handful of other whaling towns some 15 miles to the northwest: Husvik, Stromness, and Leith. The interior of the glacier-carved island was unexplored and uninhabited. Today, besides the Carrs, only a tiny British army outpost at King Edward Point cycles through transient personnel.

	The wreck of the whaling ship Petrel, harpoon gun at the ready, sinks slowly in the harbor.

Skimming the shoreline on the way to the cemetery, I am startled by a raucous chorus of sounds: A colony of elephant seals lounges on the beach. It is remarkable how easily I can walk along unaware of these two-ton animals until I've nearly trod on one, which would be unfortunate for both of us. I'm particularly wary of a male beachmaster bull, a red-eyed, furious-looking beast who rules this harem and a handful of pups. Each seal lolls lazily, occasionally articulating a flat fin to delicately scratch. The mothers seem intent on keeping the pups well in line; when the month-old babies tentatively raise their heads, the mothers unleash a torrent of scolding. They have a lot to teach in a short time; these pups will be on their own and weaned in their second month of life. Seals, once harvested by whalers, now clamber into the cemetery and wallow over tombstones if the gate is left unlatched.

The handful of graves date back to the founding of Grytviken by Carl Anton Larsen in 1904. He was Captain Larsen of the Antarctic for Otto Nordenskjold's 1901 expedition. Sailing into the unknown expanse of the Weddell Sea, the men became separated and stranded among the frozen islands of the Antarctic peninsula. Watching his ship claimed by the pack ice, the stranded Larsen led his stranded men on two open-boat journeys in the treacherous Weddell before being rescued. After nearly two years in the ice, they were saved. Shackleton would have cause to remember Larsen in the months after Endurance left Grytviken on December 5, 1914.

The whalers' church nestles below the brooding mountains.

We sailed late this afternoon for Stromness Bay, northwest of Cumberland East Bay. Just before we left, we heard news of our second expedition ship, the Laurel. The ship had departed from Punta Arenas just behind a brewing storm in the Drake Passage, and we hadn't heard from its crew for two days. When they finally arrived, we learned that our colleagues' passage was much rougher in the compact Laurel. We'll have to wait for the stories of the sea-weary crew. Tomorrow we begin flying over Shackleton's footsteps in the remote interior of South Georgia.

Kelly Tyler is Online Producer for NOVA.

Question of the Day

Past expeditions have traveled on foot, dog sled, skis, wind-power, the newly invented motor car, ponies, and even bicycles, and each had their drawbacks. What method of travel will you choose for your expedition?

Watch the next dispatch for a response from our guest commentator, celebrated explorer Will Steger.

Previous Questions

Answer to October 27 Question of the Day:

What kind of people will you choose for your crew? What kind of training will you give them?

Shackleton's choice of men was excellent. This was surely proved by their performance and their hardiness throughout the whole amazing journey. Were I to face such a journey, I could not do better than to emulate his selection system.

—Sir Ranulph Fiennes led the British Transglobe Expedition in Antarctica and crossed Antarctica on foot in 1992.

Sound of the Day

Elephant seal colony with beachmaster bull, females and pups on South Georgia Island
RealAudio: 28.8 | ISDN | Get RealPlayer software

View Expedition Maps

Dispatches

Survival Training (October 19, 1999)
The James Caird Embarks (October 21, 1999)
The Roaring Forties (October 23, 1999)
Crossing the Convergence (October 24, 1999)
Arriving in South Georgia (October 27, 1999)
Grytviken (October 28, 1999)
Antarctic Kit: Dressing for Survival (October 31, 1999)
Stromness (November 1, 1999)
Kingdom of Blizzards (November 3, 1999)
King Haakon Bay (November 5, 1999)
The James Caird Sets Sail (November 8, 1999)
Glacier Traverse (November 10, 1999)
Elephant Island (November 11, 1999)
Erebus and Terror Gulf (November 12, 1999)
The Weddell Sea (November 15, 1999)
Visions of Endurance (November 18, 1999)
Return to Elephant Island (November 20, 1999)
Lost at Sea (November 21, 1999)
The End of the Quest (November 24, 1999)
Bound for South Georgia (April 7, 2000)
Return to King Haakon (April 10, 2000)
Farewell to Peggotty Camp (April 12, 2000)
Climbing South Georgia (April 13, 2000)
Stromness Revisited (April 15, 2000)
Reflections on Endurance (April 18, 2000)

Photos: (1-4) Kelly Tyler.

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