Grytviken, South Georgia

This week I bring to you yet another abandoned settlement, though not on quite the same scale as last week’s entry.  This one is just a remote village called Grytviken, located far from civilization in the territory of South Georgia, just southeast of South America and north of Antarctica.  If you don’t mind going a little bit out of the way, however, this run down whaling village is quite an educational experience for the urban explorer.

Grytviken was first established in 1904 by a Norwegian sea captain.  It quickly became a very successful whaling village, providing all sorts of whale-based products to the world.  Eventually, however, overfishing destroyed the whale population.  The combination of fewer whales and tighter whaling restrictions made it unviable to continue the operation and it closed down in 1966.

What remains is an industrial wasteland of a once-thriving business.  There are abandoned and rusting shells of old whaling stations, oil processing plants, warehouses and beached whaling ships, along with the remnants of the village itself.  Within the harsh environment of the area, these buildings are quickly falling to decay.

In order to draw tourists, there have been steps taken to get rid of some of the more dangerous elements that urban explorers sometimes have to deal with.  They’ve pulled out all the old asbestos and removed buildings that were likely to collapse.  So now people can feel free to walk around this graveyard of whaling and experience this bit of the past.  They’ve also opened up a museum, complete with a gift shop, to further educate people about the history of Grytviken.

Still, Grytviken is a long ways to go to explore one site.  It’s so remote that less than 10,000 people show up each year to tour the village and most of those visitors are on their way somewhere else and just happen to stop by.  It’s a bit off the beaten path, but you can still experience it by checking out a gallery of photos here.

Grytviken courtesy of Hbk33 via Wikicommons