Grytviken Whaling Station

A fur seal pup scratches in the shadow of a giant iron ship propeller on South Georgia Island's Grytviken. One of several whaling communities on this remote island in the Southern Ocean, the station operated between 1904 and 1965.

🐳  🐳  🐳  🐳

The hulking remains of the whaling station are a grim reminder of the wildlife atrocity here. The slaughter of wildlife was commercialized with brutal industrial efficiency.

More than 50,000 harpooned whales were processed at this station or about one-quarter of the whales taken on whaling stations scattered across South Georgia. 

People on the island slaughtered more than a million fur seals and another 800,000 elephant seals, driving them to the brink of extinction on South Georgia.

Today, wildlife teems on its shores, including this colony of fur seals. Grytviken has a history museum dedicated to the community of people who lived and worked on the island and the explorers who came here.

Grytviken is home to the grave of explorer Ernest Shackleton, who sought shelter at the station after his ship the Endurance got trapped in the ice and his crew was marooned on Elephant Island just north of the Antarctic peninsula. Shackleton and five handpicked crew made a daring 15-day trek across 800 miles of dangerous ocean in a 22-foot whaleboat and a first-of-its-kind land crossing of the island to reach help at Grytviken.

Incredibly, all 22 stranded sailors at Elephant Island were rescued.

Fur seals are framed by a giant anchor. South Georgia Island is a world destination for wildlife photographers. But attitudes about the island have changed dramatically in the past century. Where before animals were exploited, today the British government enforces strict biocontrols to prevent invasive species from reaching its shores. The clothing and boot inspections aboard our ship, the Ortelius, took hours. We spent the previous night using sticky tape, brushes and sewing needles to remove every possible seed or speck of dirt from boot creases and velcro fasteners on jackets and pants.

A king penguin rests on a grassy lawn near the Grytviken museum. The harried inspector might have been better off giving every tourist a sandwich bag and letting us leave after we filled it with invasive dandelions!

Elephant seals have made a comeback on the island.

I didn't enjoy coming to Grytviken with its ugly reminders of our depraved selfishness. But the visit demonstrated the resilience of nature if given a chance.