Managing the frozen commons - Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent - page 274

Figure 10.1 Stripping sea elephant blubber and rolling it in barrels to try-works, Southwest beach,
Herd's Island. From G. B. Goode (1887). The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United
States. (Credit: NOAA)

sealer John Davis, may have made the first landing on mainland Antarctica on

7 February 1821. These expeditions would later be used as building blocks in
territorial discussions.
It was the introduction of large-scale whaling, a much more important
commercial activity, which brought forward the need for regulations. As with the
sealing, it was technology from the northern hemisphere that made the impact.
In 1892 93 four expeditions went south, three Norwegian and one Scottish.

C. A. Larsen led the Jason expeditions, which shot the

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first whale in the Southern

Ocean. These expeditions had financial backing from magnates of whaling

in northern waters. Although the initial expeditions were not a financial

success, the observations of multitudes of large whales led to several companies
becoming involved, primarily from Norway. By the early twentieth century,
such companies were establishing whaling stations on South Georgia and on
Deception Island.