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
A. W. Brøgger, “Ham som gav oss sydpollandet,” Verden i Bilder 1 (April 1939), 1–7.
Max Jones, The last great quest, Captain Scott’s Antarctic sacrifice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 24.
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.
Nicolay Nicolaysen, Langskipet fra Gokstad (Sandefjord: Stiftelsen Norsk senter for jernalderog middelalderhåndverk, 2003 [first published 1882]).
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.
On the ship’s construction and Atlantic crossing, see Magnus Andersen, Vikingefærden: en illustreret beskrivelse af “Vikings” reise i 1893 (Kristiania: M. Andersen, 1895).
William Walton, World’s Columbian exposition: art & architecture (Philadelphia: George Barrie, 1893), 56–57.
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.
Arne Hoffstad and Knut Berg, Sandefjords historie—sett gjennem Sandefjords Blads spalter 1861–1983 (1) (Sandefjord: Sandefjords Blad og Trykkeri, 1983), 193.
See for instance Jenny Beckman, Naturens palats: nybyggnad, vetenskap, och utställning vid Naturhistorika riksmuseet 1866–1925 (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1999), 14.
Copies of this correspondence are preserved in CCH HFK 1920, box 10. Unlike Shackleton’s main party, in which all 28 men survived despite being marooned when their ship was crushed in the ice, the Ross Sea party lost three men. See Richard McElrea and David R. Harrowfield, Polar castaways: the Ross Sea party of Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1914–17 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).
For an account of the expedition, see Thomas Bagshawe, Two men in the Antarctic: an expedition to Graham Land, 1920–22 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939).
Enebakk, “Hansteen’s magnetometer and the Magnetic Crusade,” Science in Context 24 (4), 2011, forthcoming.
Lars Christensen, Such is the Antarctic, trans. E. M. G. Jayne (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), 28–29; Bush, ed., Antarctica and international law (2), 103.
For a brief biographical account, see Leif Størmer, “Olaf Holtedahl. 24 June 1885–26 August 1975,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 22 (1976): 193–205.
Robert Marc Friedman, “Nansenismen,” in Norsk polarhistorie 2: vitenskapene, ed., Einar-Arne Drivenes and Harald Dag Jølle (Oslo: Gyldendal, 2004), 107–73.
Friedman cites a particularly revealing passage to this effect from W. C. Brøgger and Nordahl Rolfsen’s biography of Nansen, written even before the great man returned from his famous polar drift in the Fram in 1896 (“Nansenismen,” 110–11). See also Brøgger and Rolfsen, Fridtjof Nansen 1861–1893 (Copenhagen: Det Nordiske Forlag, 1896).
See Friedman, “Nansenismen”; Roland Huntford, Nansen: the explorer as hero (London: Duckworth, 1997).
Anders Jahre to Commerce Ministry, December 6, 1926. CCH HKC box 1, folder “Handelsdepartementet 1925–26.” Jahre became one of the richest and most respected men in Norway, though his reputation has not survived beyond the grave. See Alf Jacobsen, Eventyret Anders Jahre (Oslo: Oktober, 1982).
Hoel, “Den norske Svalbardforskning. Oprettelsen av Norges Svalbardog Ishavs-undersøkelser. Spørsmålet om undersøkelser i Sydpolartraktene,” April 15, 1929. SATø NP A 013 4/4 box 233, folder 323.” See also Susan Barr, Norway: a consistent polar nation? Analysis of an image seen through the history of the Norwegian Polar Institute (Oslo: Kolofon, 2003), 169.
Hjort, “Hvalundersøkelser i Norskehavet og Sydhavet,” Sandefjords Blad, August 7, 1928.
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.
Hjort, “Norsk videnskabelig hvalfangstekspedition til Sydhavet næste sommer. En plan bearbeidet av professor Johan Hjort i forstaaelse med britiske videnskapsmænd.” [Norwegian scientific whaling expedition to the Southern Ocean next summer. A plan prepared by Professor Johan Hjort in cooperation with British scientists.]” Norges Handelsog Sjøfartstidende, September 22, 1928.
Hoel, “Den norske Svalbardforskning. Oprettelsen av Norges Svalbard- og Ishavs-undersøkelser. Spørsmålet om undersøkelser i Sydpolartraktene,” April 15, 1929. SATø NP A 013 4/4 box 233, folder 323.”
See for example Aagaard, “Vor hvalfangst. Begyndelsen til enden [Our whaling. The beginning of the end],” Sandefjords Blad, November 15, 1928.
Aagaard, “Norsk forskning og hvalfangst i Sydishavet Norwegian research and whaling in the Southern Ocean],” Norges Handels- og Sjøfartstidende, April 30, 1929.
Hjort “En nasjonal begivenhet [A national event],” Tidens Tegn, January 20, 1929.
Hjort, “ ‘Norvegia’-ekspeditionene, havforskningsmøtet og det internationale samarbeide [The ‘Norvegia’ expeditions, the marine research meeting and international cooperation],” Norges Handels- og Sjøfartstidende, April 30, 1929.
Charlotte Epstein, The power of words in international relations: birth of an antiwhaling discourse (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), especially 175–78.
Philip Ayres, Mawson: a life (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999), 171.
Aagaard, “Sir Douglas Mawson and the Norvegia-expedition of 1927–1928–1929 and 1930,” Norwegian Journal of Commerce and Shipping, October 17, 1929.
The quote is reproduced from Oddvar Høidal, Quisling: a study in treachery (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989), 298.
For a history of the League, see Andreas Norland, Hårde tider: Fedrelandslaget i norsk politikk (Oslo: Dreyers, 1973).
Tor Bomann-Larsen, Roald Amundsen: en biografi (Oslo: Cappelen, 2003), 474–76.
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, Mot ukjent land: Norvegia-ekspedisjonen 1929–1930 (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1930), 165.
On the younger Hjort’s political career—and relationship with his father— see Ivo de Figueiredo, Fri mann: Johan Bernhard Hjort, en dannelseshistorie (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002).
Olaf Holtedahl, “Lit om ‘Norvegia’-ekspedisjonen 1927–28 og dens arbeide [A little about the ‘Norvegia’ expedition of 1927–28 and its work],” Norwegian Whaling Gazette 1 (1929): 17.
See Wordie in Goodenough et al, “Antarctic research by the ‘Norvegia’ expedition and others: discussion,” Geographical Journal 78 (November 1931): 415.
Fridtjof Isachsen, “Light on ‘Homeland of Mist’ in the South,” Norwegian Whaling Gazette 51 (1961): 49–54.
Holtedahl, “Antarctic research by the “Norvegia” expedition and others,” Geographical Journal 78 (November 1931): 406.
Ahlmann, “Geomorphological studies in Norway,” Geografiska Annaler 1 (1919): 1–148; and “Scientific results of the Swedish-Norwegian Arctic expedition in the summer of 1931: geomorphology,” Geografiska Annaler 15 (1933): 112–13.
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.
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.
Hugh Robert Mill in Goodenough et al., “Antarctic research by the ‘Norvegia’ expedition and others: discussion,” Geographical Journal 78 (November 1931): 416.
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).
Aksel Zachariassen, Fra trellekår til frie menn: Norsk sjømannsforbund gjennom 40 år (Oslo: Arbeidernes Aktietrykkeri, 1950), 515.
Hjort, Gunnar Jahn, and Per Ottestad, “The optimum catch,” Hvalrådets Skrifter 7 (1933): 92–127.
Tim D. Smith, Scaling fisheries: the science of measuring the effects of fishing, 1855–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 214–29.
Hjort, J. Lie, and Johan T. Ruud, “Norwegian pelagic whaling in the Antarctic I: whaling grounds in 1929–1930 and 1930–1931,” Hvalrådets Skrifter 3 (1932): 7; 14.
Hjort, “Biology and social service,” in Hjort, The human value of biology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 203.
Gordon Jackson, The British whaling trade (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1978), 218; Tønnessen, Moderne hvalfangsts historie (3), 405.
The approved version of these minutes—which are essentially the same as the archival copy I accessed—were reproduced as an appendix to Hjort, J. Lie, and Johan Ruud, “Pelagic whaling in the Antarctic V: the season 1934–35,” Hvalrådets Skrifter 12 (1935), i-xvi.
Hjort, Lie, and Ruud, “Pelagic whaling in the Antarctic VI: the season 1935–1936,” Hvalrådets Skrifter 14 (1937), 32–34. By 1937, Hjort had even begun using the analogy of the Greenland whale fishery—a favorite of both Aagaard and Harmer—to argue that the improvement of extraction processes (which made each whale more valuable) would lead to whaling being economically viable even when they had become scarce.
Hjort, Lie, and Ruud, “Pelagic whaling in the Antarctic VII: the season 1936–1937,” Hvalrädets Skrifter 18 (1937), 29. This was the last report with Hjort’s name attached: from the next season, Bergersen replaced him as lead author.
Einar-Arne Drivenes, “Ishavsimperialisme,” already cited in notes; Ida Blom, Kampen om Eirik Raudes land: pressegruppepolitikk i grønlandsspørsmålet 1921–1931 (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1973).
Riiser-Larsen, Femti år for kongen, (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1957), 186; Riiser-Larsen to Aagaard, November 19, 1932. CCH BAK box 10.
Aagaard, “Can Norway secure territories in the Antarctic on the same principle as Great Britain?” Norwegian Journal of Commerce and Shipping weekly, foreign edition, December 21, 1933.
Hallvard Devold, Polarliv, (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1940), 168.
Narve Fulsås, “En æressag for vår nation,” in Drivenes and Jølle, eds., Norsk polarhistorie 1: ekspedisjonene, 222. Thorstein Veblen laid out the concept in The theory of the leisure class (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973 [originally published 1899]).
Holtedahl, “Antarctic research by the ‘Norvegia’ and others,” Geographical Journal 78 (November 1931): 409.
Bernhard Luncke, “Norges Svalbard- og Ishavs-Undersøkelsers luftkartleg- ning i Eirik Raudes Land 1932,” Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift 4 (1933): 347.
Sverdrup, “Report on the photogrammetrical work carried out by Norsk Polarinstitutt 1938–1955,” dated January 1956. SATø NP A 013 4/4 box 228, folder 269.
Christensen, “Recent reconnaissance flights in the Antarctic,” Geographical Journal 94 (September 1939): 192–202.
Carl Bjerke, “Vil pingvinene formere sig som rotter, når de er blitt akklima- tisert? [Will the penguins breed like rats, once they have become acclimatized?]” Tønsbergs Blad, May 30, 1938.
Frode Skarstein, “‘A cursed affair’—how a Norwegian expedition to Greenland became the USA’s first maritime capture in World War II,” Polar Research 26 (2007): 1–14.
Erling Mossige, Nortraship: Handelsflåten i krig (Oslo: Grøndahl & Søn, 1989), 100.
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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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