Oil and Ice: Part I

King penguin wandering through Grytviken, South Georgia

Grytviken is a whaling station that sits on South Georgia Island in the middle of the Southern Ocean. Before the whaling era began in the early 1800s, the Southern Ocean was home to over one million baleen whales. Among them were over 250,000 blue whales, the largest animal to ever live on this planet. By the mid 1800s, the Southern Ocean had become a killing field. Whale blubber, meat, bone and viscera were boiled down and rendered into oil. This oil was sent back to Europe to be used in lamps and turned into margarine.

Whale oil tank, Grytviken, South Georgia

Grytviken was just one of the stations that processed whales into oil during that time. At its most destructive point, over 300 men lived and worked there, killing and disassembling over 53,000 whales, and producing 455,000 metric tons of whale oil. With the advent of cheaper alternative fuels and with whales becoming harder and harder to find, the profitability of whale oil declined and the harvest stopped. But the damage was already done. The oceans had been depleted of the whales and their vast culture. The blue whale population in the Southern Ocean was estimated to be less than 4,000.

Today Grytviken stands as a testament to the mass destruction and brutal efficiency that man can bring to the natural world. It is the whale equivalent of Auschwitz.

Blubber oil tank, Grytviken, South Georgia

Whaling ship, Grytviken, South Georgia

Grytviken, South Georgia

Grytviken, South Georgia