Kapp Lee, at the northwest corner of Edgeøya, Svalbard
Every site that we visit has its stories to tell. Our lecture by Naturalist Steve Engel on Tracks focused our attention on reading the stories, not just of animal tracks but of human tracks as well. In 1607 Henry Hudson visited Svalbard on a voyage in search of the northern passage to Cathay. He found no such passage, but he found seas teeming with bowhead whales. Soon the waters through which we now sail were full of whaling ships from England, Holland, France, Germany, Denmark … The British whaling Captain Thomas Edge visited this area in 1611 and left his name behind. Whalers established shore stations where the whales and walrus were towed, hauled out, flensed, their blubber “tried out” – rendered into oil to fuel the lamps that lit the salons of London and Amsterdam. We try to imagine the conditions in which men lived for a summer … or more? … in huts made of driftwood. Much of the driftwood now lying at Kapp Lee has been worked by hand tools. Could it have been used in the construction of 17th century huts? The ground is littered with the giant jaws, skulls, and ribs of whales – evidence of the slaughter. By 1650 the whales were largely exhausted and the era of shore-based whaling ended. Now, the whales are gone, extinct, but the stories remain, if we only look, read the tracks, and imagine Svalbard as it was in the first half of the 17th century.
Every site that we visit has its stories to tell. Our lecture by Naturalist Steve Engel on Tracks focused our attention on reading the stories, not just of animal tracks but of human tracks as well. In 1607 Henry Hudson visited Svalbard on a voyage in search of the northern passage to Cathay. He found no such passage, but he found seas teeming with bowhead whales. Soon the waters through which we now sail were full of whaling ships from England, Holland, France, Germany, Denmark … The British whaling Captain Thomas Edge visited this area in 1611 and left his name behind. Whalers established shore stations where the whales and walrus were towed, hauled out, flensed, their blubber “tried out” – rendered into oil to fuel the lamps that lit the salons of London and Amsterdam. We try to imagine the conditions in which men lived for a summer … or more? … in huts made of driftwood. Much of the driftwood now lying at Kapp Lee has been worked by hand tools. Could it have been used in the construction of 17th century huts? The ground is littered with the giant jaws, skulls, and ribs of whales – evidence of the slaughter. By 1650 the whales were largely exhausted and the era of shore-based whaling ended. Now, the whales are gone, extinct, but the stories remain, if we only look, read the tracks, and imagine Svalbard as it was in the first half of the 17th century.
