Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

were towed back to the station and rendered into commercial products, primarily
whale oil, but also meat and bone meal and other by-products. An annual quota of
elephant seals was also taken from the beaches around the island by sealing
gangs. The company had been in continuous operation since 1904, when it was
founded by the Norwegian whaler, CA Larsen, and was the start of the Antarctic
whaling industry.
The government station was built on King Edward Point, a low tussockcovered
promontory near the entrance of the cove, opposite Pesca, The land
running roughly east to west at the north-east side of King Edward Cove.
Grytviken means pot cove in Norwegian, from the many old cast iron trypots left
by the early elephant sealers. At other times there was a beautiful view including
Mount Paget rising to [nearly l0,000 feet][2915m]. It was very lovely and not really
polar at all, for there was an abundance of green vegetation. It had been the site of
the British administrative headquarters since 1909, of the Discovery Committee’s
Marine Biological Laboratory, 1925-31, and for a few months of the FIDS Station,
South Georgia.
Biscoe tied up at the KEP jetty and instead of the usual FIDS base I found
myself in charge of a base which was more like a very run-down hostel. There was
electric light and central heating. I had three rooms to myself in the old Discovery
House, the laboratories of Discovery Investigations, set up in l925. They were at the
back of the house, embracing a magnificent view of Cumberland Bay and the
Allardyce Range. The main entrance was on the north side, for the planners had
assumed that as houses faced south in the northern hemisphere, the reverse was to
be preferred in the south. But it meant that here they faced into the steep face of
Mount Duse (1663 ft) and were in shadow for much of the year. I had a laboratory
with running water, a study and a bedroom. My laboratory had been the boiler
room for central heating, with sturdy benches, a concrete floor and outside access
– ideal for dissections and preparing specimens. My study and bedroom were
parts of the old laboratory, the remainder of which was now a storeroom and a
billiards room! It was quite a home from home. With a permanent cook and
several of us to share the housekeeping chores, I was able to devote nearly all my
time to work. South Georgia operated as a FIDS Base only for 1950-1951; from l952
to 1969, it was a government meteorological station; and in l970 it became a BAS
research station (until the Argentine invasion in l982).
At the western end was a strong jetty of wooden piles where the bottom
shelved steeply into deep water. The Post Office stood on the shore just south of
the jetty and alongside it two boathouses. A track led eastwards through the
middle of the settlement. On the shore side was first the Meteorological Building
(built in 1907 by the Argentines), near it a store (1925), to which a truck railway
led from the jetty. Discovery House (1925) came next, an attractive building erected
to house the Discovery Investigations staff and containing living accommodation,
offices, dry and wet laboratories. Then came the Magistrate’s House (1925) a
Customs House (1947) and a hard tennis court (more recently a Helicopter landing
pad). Opposite the tennis court was a brick built gaol (1913) which had housed
only a few prisoners over the years; east of it was the Police House (1950).
Westwards down the track from here stood the Radio Room and Residence and
store (1925), then the Power House and a cylindrical fuel tank on the shore. The
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