Hidde Dirks Cat

Hidde Dirks Cat

Hidde Dirks Kat (born June 14, 1747 in Hollum ; † January 17, 1824 ibid) was shipwrecked as commander of a whaling ship on a Greenland voyage and recorded his experiences in a diary. The tragedy described marks the end of the heyday of Ameland whaling , which had secured the income of many islanders since the middle of the 17th century.

Summary of the diary entries

Map of Greenland from the diary

Still in the street named after him in Hollum

Grave in the cemetery in Hollum

In the service of a Hamburg shipowner, the Amelander Hidde Dirks Kat left Hamburg on March 5, 1777 with the brig De Juffrouw Klara in the direction of Spitzbergen . The whale and seal hunt was initially successful. However, near the North Pole, the brig and four other ships were trapped by the pack ice on August 6. Two ships were quickly destroyed by floating ice floes, so that the crews first had to rescue the three ships that were still intact. The bacon of the captured whales drifted around and attracted polar bears, some of which the crews shot down to feed on. Several weeks passed until on September 30th the remaining three ships were destroyed by a violent storm and the men had to flee onto the ice. Since there was no longer any prospect of rescue, Kat and his 50 comrades decided to walk across the ice to Greenland. Two crew members were no longer able to walk and had to be left behind. The only equipment the group had was a compass, two boat hooks, a tea kettle, a beer mug and some provisions.

Many of the castaways perished on the journey, which was full of privation: some slipped on the ice and fell into the water, where they either drowned or were crushed by floating ice floes; others froze to death in the nights when the darkness did not allow them to move forward. When the group reached the mainland at Cape Farvel after about a week , there were only 18 men left. After another day of hiking , the survivors met local Inuit who took in the men, weakened by hunger and cold, and brought them to the Danish colony of Frederikshåb . Their fellow fates spent the winter there until they were finally able to return home the following summer. Hidde Dirks Kat did not return to his home island until September 27, 1778.

Impact of the shipwreck

The Dutch whaling, which was profitable up to this point, experienced a slow decline in the following years. In 1798, England also confiscated almost the entire Dutch whaling fleet. Of the many Ameland whale drivers , only two commanders were still active, and they too traveled to the Arctic Ocean for the last time in 1802.

Kat himself has not gone whaling since the accident, instead he turned to merchant shipping. His diary, in which, in addition to the dramatic events of his rescue, he also described the Inuit way of life in detail, was published in 1818 under the title Dagboek eener reize ter walvischen robben-vangst gedaan in de jaren 1777 en 1778 in Haarlem.

As a wealthy and obese man, Kat died in Hollum on Ameland in 1824, where he was also buried. His grave in the cemetery, a statue and a street named after him remind of him there.

literature

• Hans Bakker: Ameland van Oost dead West. Uitgave Boekhandel Van den Brink, Nes / Ameland 2006

Web links

• Hidde Dirks Kat: Dagboek eener reize ter Walvischen robben-vangst gedaan in de jaren 1777 en 1778 or , in Dutch, on books.google.com
• Francis Allan: Het Eiland Ameland en zijne bewoners. Amsterdam 1857; P. 85 , Dutch, on books.google.nl