The settlement of Smeerenburg on Amsterdam Island in north-west Svalbard

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...

, originated with Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 and Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 whalers in 1619: one of Europe's northernmost outposts.

Reality

During the first intensive phase of the Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...

 whale

Whale

Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...

 fishery, Smeerenburg served as the centre of operations in the north. (The name Smeerenburg, in Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

, literally means "blubber

Blubber

Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue found under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians.-Description:Lipid-rich, collagen fiber–laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages, strongly attached to the musculature...

 town"). The image at right shows the concretized remnants of whale oil that built up around the large (ca. 2-3m diameter) copper kettles in which the blubber was rendered. Leftover blubber was used as fuel for the fires.

The site of Smeerenburg was first occupied by the Dutch in 1614, when ships from the Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 chamber of the Noordsche Compagnie

Noordsche Compagnie

The Noordsche or Groenlandse Compagnie was a cartel for whaling, founded by several cities in the Netherlands...

(Northern Company) established a temporary whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 station here with tents made of canvas and crude, temporary ovens. In 1615, 1616, and 1618 the Dutch again occupied the site. In 1619, a 500-ton ship with timber and other materials was sent to Spitsbergen. The tents and temporary ovens were replaced with wooden structures and copper kettles "set in a permanent fashion on a brick foundation, with a brick fireplace beneath and a chimney for the smoke."

In its first year only Amsterdam and the Danes occupied Smeerenburg, the former to the east and the latter to the west. In 1619 and 1620 the Danish ships that went to Smeerenburg were sent by merchants from Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, while those that went there in 1621 and 1622 were sent by a royal undertaking. In 1623 two Basque ships employed by the Danes arrived at Smeerenburg and began taking whaling gear from the Danish huts before they were driven away by the Dutch. In 1625, when the Danish-employed Basque ships arrived at their place in Smeerenburg they found that their station had been damaged, the work of the Dutch and English in the previous season. After 1625 the Danes were expelled by the Dutch, their place being occupied by the Hoorn

Hoorn

-Cities :* Purmerend * Enkhuizen * Alkmaar * Amsterdam * Lelystad * Den Helder * Leeuwarden -Towns :* Edam...

, Enkhuizen

Enkhuizen

Enkhuizen is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.Enkhuizen was one of the harbour-towns of the VOC, just like Hoorn and Amsterdam, from where overseas trade with the East Indies was conducted. It received city rights in 1355...

, and Vlissingen chambers. By 1626 there were five big "huts" at Smeerenburg, and by 1633 all the chambers of the Northern Company were represented at the settlement.

In its heyday (1630s), Smeerenburg was made up of 16-17 buildings, including a fort

Fortification

Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...

 at its centre, built in or before 1631 to ward off the Danish and other interlopers. The alleys between the buildings were cobbled with drainage gullies, allowing the men to walk dry-shod. There were seven double (and one single) ovens situated in front of the buildings. Amsterdam had three of the buildings and two of the double ovens, while to the west were the stations of the Middelburg

Middelburg

Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...

, Veere

Veere

Veere is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands, on Walcheren island in the province of Zeeland.-Population centres :Aagtekerke , Biggekerke , Domburg , Gapinge , Grijpskerke , Koudekerke , Meliskerke , Oostkapelle , Serooskerke , Veere , Vrouwenpolder , Westkapelle...

, Vlissingen, Enkhuizen, Delft

Delft

Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....

, and Hoorn chambers. During this time there were as many as 200 men working ashore, boiling blubber into oil, flensing

Flensing

Flensing is the removing of the outer integument of whales. English whalemen called it "flenching", while American whalemen called it "cutting-in".-Open-boat:-Shore and Bay whaling:...

 whales, and coopering casks to pour the oil into.

Following the destruction of a Dutch station in Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen Island is a volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean and part of the Kingdom of Norway. It is long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers . It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by an isthmus wide...

 by Danish-employed Basque ships in 1632, the Dutch sent seven men, led by Jacob Segersz. van der Brugge, to over-winter at Smeerenburg in 1633-34. All seven men survived, prompting another wintering by another group of seven sailors in 1634-35. Unfortunately, all of them perished, and the experiment was abandoned.

Smeerenburg’s decline began in the early to mid-1640s. We hear of it still in use by the Hoorn chamber as late as 1657. Around 1660, with the transition to processing blubber into oil on return to port and expansion into pelagic whaling, the settlement was abandoned.

In 1973 the ruins of Smeerenburg became part of Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

's North-West Spitsbergen National Park.

Myth

The size of Smeerenburg has been greatly exaggerated by many authors. William Scoresby

William Scoresby

William Scoresby , was an English Arctic explorer, scientist and clergyman.-Early years:Scoresby was born in the village of Cropton near Pickering 26 miles south of Whitby in Yorkshire. His father, William Scoresby , made a fortune in the Arctic whale fishery...

 (1820) said 200 to 300 ships and 12,000 to 18,000 men visited Smeerenburg during the short summer season. The Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

 (1920) made similar claims, stating that hundreds of ships anchored along the flat of Smeerenburg where ten thousand people visited a complete town with stalls and streets. Besides the tryworks, smithies

Forge

A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...

, and workshops, there were shops, churches, fortifications, gambling dens

Gambling

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

, and even brothel

Brothel

Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

s. Such claims have no basis in reality, as noted above. No more than fifteen ships and 400 men would have visited Smeerenburg during its peak in the 1630s. There were no shops, churches, or brothels, though there was a single fort with two guns. Unfortunately, despite the results of archaeological excavations that took place in the period 1979-81, modern authors still sometimes repeat the fabulous legends told of Smeerenburg.