Grytviken

The church is a stunningly simple wooden building. It houses the original whalers’ library and also a number of plaques and memorials relating to Sir Ernest Shackleton and others people, and busts of station founder Captain Carl Anton Larsen and of Shackleton.

The church is the only building at Grytviken that is still serving its original purpose. It undergone several restorations in recent years. The building is owned by the Government but managed by the museum team.

The building was planned by Larsen and designed by architect Adalbert Kielland, Larsen’s son-in-law. It was prefabricated in Strømmen, Norway and then shipped to South Georgia. In 1913 it was erected by the station workers in their spare time. The church was consecrated on Christmas Day 1913, and the two church bells, cast in Tønsberg, were first rung at midnight on Christmas Eve.

The pastor, Kristen Loken, had arrived at Grytviken 18 months earlier as ‘priest and lecturer’. He left in 1914 and three more ministers were in residence for short periods until 1931.

Løken wrote that “religious life does not wax strong amongst the whalers and left much to be desired”.

The Grytviken cemetery is a 10-minute walk from the museum and contains the famous grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Hazards from the sea, weather, shipwreck, disease, accidents, the nature of employment, and other things have resulted in many deaths. 64 people are buried here including the graves of the whalers and sealers. One grave dates as far back as 1838. Also buried here is Felix Artuso, a Submariner, who died during the brief Argentine armed occupation in 1982.

One of the earliest recorded vessels to the island was Esther in July 1846 – a series of graves indicate her presence. A repaired wooden marker is inscribed: ‘In memory of W.H. Dyre, Surgeon of Esther of London. Jas Carrick, Master. July 1846.’ and four of the nine unmarked graves in that cemetery are said to be of her crew, all having reportedly died of typhus. The original grave marker is now in the museum collection, taken from the site for protection in 1995. The markers can be seen in the photographs below and replicas have been erected in the cemetery. It is uncertain if this was a sealing voyage and the ship probably arrived at South Georgia about the middle of winter. If it were it would have been the last British voyage in the first epoch of South Georgia sealing. There was a gap of over twenty years before the next known voyage to the island.

Other early graves are from the winter of 1912, when a typhoid epidemic hit the station. During the first year of Pastor Loken’s residence on South Georgia a typhus epidemic occurred at Grytviken and nine men died during the winter of 1912. This arrived with a ship from Buenos Aires and infected 17% of the whaling station’s personnel. King Edward Point and Grytviken remained in quarantine throughout the 1912 winter. These and many other deaths are listed in the church book.

On the 24 February 1928, Magistrate William Barlas unveiled the carved granite memorial, erected over Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grave. The memorial, paid for by public subscription, stands prominently. The front bears a nine-pointed star, a symbol associated with the Shackleton family; the reverse a quotation from Robert Browning ‘I hold that a man should strive to the uttermost for his life’s set prize’.
On 2 September 1941, the Magistrate William Barlas drowned when an avalanche knocked him into the sea whilst he was on the track between King Edward Point and Grytviken. He had been Deputy Magistrate at South Georgia since 1920 and Magistrate since 1928, as well as serving in other posts in the Falkland Islands Dependencies. His grave is marked with a Celtic cross.

Many visitors come to South Georgia each year – in 2019 over seventy cruise ship visits brought over 11,000 visitors in the summer as well as scientists on research ships, military visitors and yachts. Most come to see Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grave in particular; so the cemetery is popular. To prevent trampling of the other graves, visiting groups are asked to limit the number of people inside the cemetery at any time to 100.