125th birthday for

Treacherous trip for ships to other side of the world

IT’S cold in Dundee from time to time, without a doubt — but nowhere near as cold as Dundee Island, which marks its 125th anniversary this week.

The island, located just off of the north-eastern tip of Antarctica, was named by explorer Thomas Robertson in January 1893.

Robertson captained the Active, a “screw-steamer” that was one of four boats sent to the southernmost tip of the world in search of whales.

Repeated downsizing of the whale population around the UK, and dangerous expeditions into the ice fields of the Arctic Circle, had led to fears of the industry dying out.

Robert Kinnes, managing director of the Tay Whale Fishing Company Ltd, dispatched four of his five ships from Dundee to the Antarctic in the week of September 1892 to find the black whale, reported by previous surveyors to be plentiful in the region.

Sarah Aitken, assistant archivist at Dundee City Archives, said: “The industry was starting to head towards a crash — it had overfished.

“But the ships couldn’t cope with the big humpback whales they found. They were able to break even, however.”

The four ships — the Active, the Balaena, the Diana and the Pole Star — embarked on a treacherous journey to the Antarctic lasting three months.

They arrived at an agreed rendezvous point i n the Antarctic on December 23, except the Pole Star, which arrived on January 9.

Crews spent 14 hours pursuing one large whale that later escaped, taking two harpoons with it.

The crews resorted to hunting seals