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The Union of Hunting and Research

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The European Antarctic

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Abstract

The cover story of the very first issue of the Norwegian illustrated magazine Verden i Bilder, issued in April 1939, was titled “Ham som gav oss sydpollandet”—“He who gave us the south polar land.”1 The man in question was the whaling magnate Lars Christensen, whose life of patrician opulence was represented along with images of desolate Antarctic landscapes and suspiciously clean whaling ships. His transformation from a willing agent of British imperial authority to an aggressive patriot, from a figure of local commercial pride to an icon of national glory, captures in microcosm the outline of Norwegian Antarctic activity between the world wars.

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Notes

  1. A. W. Brøgger, “Ham som gav oss sydpollandet,” Verden i Bilder 1 (April 1939), 1–7.

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  2. Max Jones, The last great quest, Captain Scott’s Antarctic sacrifice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 24.

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  3. The commemorative biography by Hans Bogen, 70 år: Lars Christensen og hans samtid (Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum, 1955), has a wealth of personal information from the early years of Lars Christensen’s life, and appears to have been the first half of a planned two-volume work.

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  4. Nicolay Nicolaysen, Langskipet fra Gokstad (Sandefjord: Stiftelsen Norsk senter for jernalderog middelalderhåndverk, 2003 [first published 1882]).

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  5. Mark Rosenthal, Carol Tauber, and Edward Uhlir, The ark in the park: the story of the Lincoln Park Zoo (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 69.

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  8. This conclusion is shared by Einar Wexelsen, Vel blåst! Kommandrør Chr. Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum 75 ar 1917–1992 (Sandefjord: Chr Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum publication 26, 1993), 11.

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  22. Vigorously anti-socialist, Hjort felt scientists ought ideally to advise industry directly without involving the state, especially in fishing and whaling. See for example Hjort, The emperor’s new clothes: confessions of a biologist, trans. A. G. Jayne (London: Williams and Norgate, 1931), 249–50 and 283–84.

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  32. The quote is reproduced from Oddvar Høidal, Quisling: a study in treachery (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989), 298.

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  42. See for instance Hjort’s comments in “De biologiske undersøkelser i Sydishavet [The biological investigations in the Southern Ocean],” Tønsbergs Blad, June 17, 1930; and Ruud’s article “Hvalens levealder og formering [The life expectancy and breeding characteristics of whales],” Norges Handels- og Sjøfartstidende, July 2, 1930.

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  43. This presents an interesting inversion of the association of heroic field experience with scientific authority that Bruce Hevly has described in “The heroic science of glacier motion,” Osiris (2nd series) 11 (1996): 66–86. The difference is primarily one of audience and context.

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  45. Aagaard’s favorite term, “jobber,” came into prominence during the First World War, when profits in Norwegian business (especially shipping) rocketed and the sector was flooded by new capital. After the war, the overinflated stock market crashed spectacularly, reinforcing the perception of “jobbetiden” as a time of unjustifiable risk-taking at the expense of established businesses. See Per Vogt, Jerntid og jobbetid: en skildring av Norge under verdenskrigen (Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum, 1938).

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© 2011 Peder Roberts

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Roberts, P. (2011). The Union of Hunting and Research. In: The European Antarctic. Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337909_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337909_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29705-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-33790-9

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