Kval­ross­buk­ta

Kval­ross­buk­ta 1

Loca­ted on the sou­the­as­tern side of Bear Island, Kval­ross­buk­ta is one of few bays on the island that offer easy access to flat ground on shore. Even though the bay is not exact­ly per­fect­ly well shel­te­red and it has some shal­lows, altog­e­ther it was the best place available to estab­lish a wha­ling sta­ti­on.

Kval­ross­buk­ta 2

The wha­ling sta­ti­on in Kval­ross­buk­ta was in use from 1905 to 1908, in the second pha­se of arc­tic wha­ling. The ear­ly wha­lers, in the 17th cen­tu­ry, had used rowing boats and hand-thrown har­poons. In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, the indus­tri­al age, the wha­lers had steam power and har­poon guns with explo­si­ve har­poon heads at their dis­po­sal. This meant that all wha­le spe­ci­es, inclu­ding the lar­gest and fas­test ones, were on their tar­get list. Spe­ci­es like the Blue wha­le, Finn wha­le and Hump­back wha­le were dri­ven near extinc­tion in the north Atlan­tic within a few years. Then, the wha­ling moved south, towards ant­ar­c­tic waters.

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