Svalbard Museum moves place of early whaling photo

Svalbard Museum posted a whaling photograph on Facebook on 14 November, dated 1911 and placed at the old Green Harbour (Ankerhamna) station in Grønfjorden. It shows four dead whales in the water beside two vessels, from the most intense whaling period of Svalbard's modern history, the museum wrote.

Whaling on Svalbard goes back to the early 1600s. After it was banned along the coast of Northern Norway in 1904, many companies moved to Svalbard and Bjørnøya (Bear Island), where it briefly revived.

A commenter cited a book that dates the picture to 1910 and names the vessels as the factory ship Hecla and the whale boats Alfa and Beta at Hecla Havn (Kokerihamna). The museum called the reference reliable and said it would move the picture to the west side of Grønfjorden in its database.

Coverage: Svalbard Museum on Facebook