Bay of Whales
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Ice breaker research vessel using the Whales Bay ice harbor. |
The
Bay of Whales () is an iceport indenting the front of
Ross Ice Shelf just northward of
Roosevelt Island. A natural ice harbor which generally forms here, it served as the base site for
Roald Amundsen's successful dash to the
South Pole,
1911, the
Byrd Antarctic Expeditions of
1928-
1930 and
1933-
1935, and for the West Base of
U.S. Antarctic Service,
1939-
1941.
The configuration of the iceport is continuously changing. A survey by the Byrd expedition in
1934 determined that the feature lay at the junction of two separate ice systems, the movements of which are influenced by the presence of Roosevelt Island. Cdr. Glen Jacobsen,
USN, who visited in the Atka in January
1955, found that calving of the
ice shelf rendered the iceport temporarily unusable. The feature was so named by
Ernest Shackleton in the
Nimrod,
January 24,
1908, because of the large number of
whales seen in it.
See Also:
Framheim
