South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands known as the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is 165 kilometres (103 mi) long and 35 kilometres (22 mi) wide and is by far the largest island in the territory. The South Sandwich Islands lie about 700 kilometres (430 mi) southeast of South Georgia. The territory's total land area is 3,903 km2 (1,507 sq mi). The Falkland Islands are about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) west from its nearest point.
The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
Grytviken is a hamlet on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the best harbour on the island. The location's name, meaning "pot bay", was coined in 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition and documented by the surveyor Johan Gunnar Andersson, after the expedition found old English try pots used to render seal oil at the site. Settlement was re-established on 16 November 1904 by Norwegian Antarctic explorer Carl Anton Larsen on the long-used site of former whaling settlements.
South Georgia is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east–west direction, South Georgia is around 170 kilometres (106 mi) long and has a maximum width of 35 kilometres (22 mi). The terrain is mountainous, with the central ridge rising to 2,935 metres (9,629 ft) at Mount Paget. The northern coast is indented with numerous bays and fjords, serving as good harbours.
ARA Santa Fe was an Argentine Balao-class submarine that was lost during the Falklands War. Built by the US during the Second World War, the ship operated in the United States Navy as USS Catfish (SS-339) until 1971 when she was transferred to the Argentine Navy. She served until 1982 when she was captured by the British at South Georgia after being seriously damaged and subsequently sank along a pier, with just her conning tower (sail) visible above the waterline. The submarine was raised, towed out of the bay and scuttled in deep water in 1985.
Fortuna Glacier is a tidewater glacier at the mouth of Cumberland Bay on the island of South Georgia. It flows in a northeast direction to its terminus just west of Cape Best, with an eastern distributary almost reaching the west side of Fortuna Bay, on the north coast of South Georgia. It was named in about 1912, presumably after the whale catcher Fortuna, and is notable for two major events in the 20th century.
Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship, originally named Polaris, was built at Framnæs shipyard and launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway. When one of her commissioners, the Belgian Gerlache, went bankrupt, the remaining one sold the ship for less than the shipyard had charged - but as Lars Christensen was the owner of Framnæs, there was no hardship involved. The ship was bought by Shackleton in January 1914 for the expedition, which would be her first voyage. A year later, she became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. All of the crew survived her sinking and were eventually rescued in 1916 after using the ship's boats to travel to Elephant Island and Shackleton, the ship's captain Frank Worsley, and four others made a voyage to seek help.
Operation Paraquet was the code name for the British military operation to recapture the island of South Georgia from Argentine military control in April 1982 at the start of the Falklands War.
Carl Anton Larsen was a Norwegian-born whaler and Antarctic explorer who made important contributions to the exploration of Antarctica, the most significant being the first discovery of fossils for which he received the Back Grant from the Royal Geographical Society. In December 1893 he became the first person to ski in Antarctica on the Larsen Ice Shelf which was subsequently named after him. In 1904, Larsen re-founded a whaling settlement at Grytviken on the island of South Georgia. In 1910, after some years' residence on South Georgia, he renounced his Norwegian citizenship and took British citizenship. The Norwegian whale factory ship C.A. Larsen was named after him.
John Robert Francis Wild was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
The history of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is relatively recent. When European explorers discovered the islands, they were uninhabited, and their hostile climate, mountainous terrain, and remoteness made subsequent settlement difficult. Due to these conditions, human activity in the islands has largely consisted of sealing, whaling, and scientific surveys and research, interrupted by World War II and the Falklands War.
Leith Harbour, also known as Port Leith, was a whaling station on the northeast coast of South Georgia, established and operated by Christian Salvesen Ltd, Edinburgh. The station was in operation from 1909 until 1965. It was the largest of seven whaling stations, situated near the mouth of Stromness Bay.
Stromness Bay is a bay 3 miles (4.8 km) wide, entered between Cape Saunders and Busen Point on the north coast of South Georgia.
Larsen Harbour is a narrow 2.6 miles (4.2 km) long inlet of indenting volcanic rocks and sheeted dykes known as the Larsen Harbour Formation. It is a branch of Drygalski Fjord, entered 2.5 miles (4 km) west-northwest of Nattriss Head, at the southeast end of South Georgia Island. It was charted by the Second German Antarctic Expedition, 1911–12, under Filchner, who named it for Captain Carl Anton Larsen a Norwegian explorer, who made significant contributions to the exploration of Antarctica. The most significant of these was the first discovery of fossils on the continent, for which he received the Back Grant from the Royal Geographical Society. Larsen is also considered the founder of the Antarctic whaling industry and the settlement and whaling station of Grytviken, South Georgia.
The South Georgia Museum is situated in Grytviken, near the administrative centre of the UK overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Polar explorers Ernest Shackleton and Frank Wild are buried in Grytviken's graveyard. The museum was established in 1991 by Nigel Bonner.
Compañía Argentina de Pesca was initiated by the British-Norwegian whaler and Antarctic explorer Carl A. Larsen, and established on 29 February 1904 by three foreign residents of Buenos Aires: the Norwegian consul P. Christophersen, H.H. Schlieper, and E. Tornquist. Larsen was the company's Manager, in which capacity he organized the building of Grytviken, the first land-based whaling station in Antarctica put into operation on 24 December 1904.
The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the various British territories in Sub-Antarctica and Antarctica which were governed from the Falkland Islands and its capital Port Stanley.
Religion in Antarctica is largely dominated by Christianity, with churches being the only religious buildings on the continent. Although used regularly for Christian worship, the Chapel of the Snows has also been used for Buddhist and Baháʼí Faith ceremonies. Some of the early religious buildings are now protected as important historical monuments.
The Southern Whaling and Sealing Company Ltd (SWSC) were a United Kingdom-based whaling and sealing company, originally formed in 1911 by the partnership of Richard Irvin & Sons of North Shields and the South African-based fishing company Irvin & Johnson. Latterly they were sold to Lever Bros., in 1919 and re-sold to Christian Salvesen Ltd in 1941.
HNoMS Thorodd was a Royal Norwegian Navy patrol ship and minesweeper that served through the Second World War, first during the Norwegian Campaign that followed the invasion of Norway in 1940, and then from exile in the United Kingdom. Thorodd was originally built as a steam escort trawler for the French Navy under the name Fleurus, before being sold to a Norwegian whaling firm who leased her to the Falkland Islands Government. SS Fleurus served as a commercial mail ship in the Falkland Islands Dependencies during the 1920s, and was the first vessel to carry paying tourists to Antarctica. Following the war, Thorodd was converted to a fishing trawler and sank in 1955.
