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.

← Back

Do you agree that spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a gre­at re­source for any arc­tic enthu­si­ast?

Ever­ything is avail­ab­le for free, no pay­wall, no regis­tra­ti­on, no paid adver­ti­sing, and all this in spi­te of con­stant cos­ts and effort. Plea­se help us to keep it that way, without pay­wall and paid ads, and sup­port us through Steady!

By the way:

New book

my new book is in print and it can now be orde­red 🙂 it is a pho­to book with the tit­le “Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (3): Die Bären­in­sel und Jan May­en”, with Ger­man text Click here for fur­ther details!