John Cooper, ALSA’s Principal Investigator attended a Multidisciplinary Conference on the Historical Antarctic Sealing Industry at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK on 19 & 20 September 2016. He presented a paper on the wrecking of the Solglimt and rescue of its crew at Marion Island in 1908, with co-authors Jaco Boshoff, Social History Collections Department, Iziko Museums of South Africa and Tara van Niekerk, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa.
A highlight of the conference was meeting Norwegian colleagues, including Stig Tore Lunde, Maritime Coordinator at the Whaling Museum in Sandefjord. Stig had been instrumental in supplying ALSA with photographs – some used in the talk – taken on the Solglimt‘s first voyage to the Southern Ocean by its Captain, Anders Harboe-Ree.
However, the most exciting development came at question time after the talk. Attendee Lynette Russell, Director of the Monash Indigenous Centre at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia said that her colleague, Cathrine Harboe-Ree, Monash University Librarian, is the Captain’s grand-daughter! Contact is now being sought to see what more may be learnt on the Solglimt saga. Watch this space!
With thanks to Bob Headland for hospitality.
Feature photograph: Attendees at the Historical Antarctic Sealing Industry Conference gather outside the Scott Polar Research Institute around a trypot from Grytviken, South Georgia
John Cooper, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 26 September 2016
