Smeerenburg

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Smeerenburg (Svalbard and Jan Mayen)
Smeerenburg
Smeerenburg
Location of Smeerenburg

Smeerenburg ( German  for Tran -Stadt ) is an abandoned whaling station on the island of Amsterdamøya in the northwest of Svalbard (Spitzbergen), which experienced its heyday in the first half of the 17th century.

history

Location of the buildings and kilns in Smeerenburg (17th century)
Map of northwest Svalbard
Remains of large stoves in Smeerenburg

Dutch whalers first used this place in 1614. The first permanent buildings were probably built in 1619. During the intensive phase of whaling around Spitsbergen, Smeerenburg was the center of activity. At its peak in the 1630s, there were eight potion kettles here, used to boil whale tubers into oil, and 17 or 18 buildings. Up to 200 people lived and worked in Smeerenburg in the summer months. The place was deserted in the winter months, only in 1633/34 Jacob van der Brugge wintered with six men to protect the facilities from competitors. Smeerenburg's economic decline began in the 1640s because the number of whales that could be found just off the coast was rapidly decreasing. The station was finally given up around 1660. Today only the foundation walls of the buildings can be seen.

In the past, the size of Smeerenburg was greatly overestimated. The English explorer William Scoresby wrote in 1820 that the place would have been visited by 200 to 300 ships with a crew of between 12,000 and 18,000 men per season. The place had a church and a brothel. 100 years later, Fridtjof Nansen still believed in this myth: “Back then, more than 250 years ago, there was a whole city with shops and streets. Probably 10,000 people in summer with the noise of packing houses, liquor stores, player bars, blacksmiths and workshops and bars and dance floors. On this flat beach it was teeming with boats with sailors who had just come from the exciting whaling, and women in bright colors who were looking for men. ” According to recent research, especially the archaeological excavations from 1979 to 1981 under the direction of Louwrens Hacquebord ( * 1947), this does not correspond to the historical truth.

The ruins of Smeerenburg have been part of the Northwest Spitsbergen National Park since 1973 .

literature

  • Kristin Prestvold: Smeerenburg - Gravneset. Europe's first oil adventure . Sysselmannen på Svalbard, Miljøvernavdelingen 2001.
  • William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia , Vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, 2003. ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , p. 12.
  • Louwrens Hacquebord: Smeerenburg - evidence of the earliest Svalbard whaling in the 17th century . Accompanying document for the exhibition in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven from February 6, 1988 to May 1, 1988.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Scoresby: An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery . Volume 2, Edinburgh 1820, p. 148 .
  2. ^ Fridtjof Nansen: Spitzbergen . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1921, p. 258.
  3. ↑ Øystein Overrein, Jørn Henriksen, Bjørn Fossli Johansen, Kristin Prestvold: Smeerenburg (79 ° 40 ′ N 11 ° 00 ′ E) . Cruise Handbook of Svalbard, Norsk Polarinstitutt, accessed January 25, 2016.
  4. ^ Ingo Heidbrink: Smeerenburg . In: Andrew J. Hund (Ed.): Antarctica and the Arctic Circle. A Geographic Encyclopedia of the Earth's Polar Regions . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara / Denver / Oxdord 2014, ISBN 978-1-61069-392-9 , pp. 660 f . (English).

Coordinates: 79 ° 43 ′ 56 ″  N , 10 ° 59 ′ 40 ″  E