Page Sec1:12 - Labyrint 2013 - English Edition

In the company
of death
When European whalers set sail for a new
summer season on Svalbard, they brought funeral
equipment as part of their luggage. That someone
would die was a certainty, not just a possibility.
12 ••• Labyrint E/13 – University of Tromsø
In the 1800s, Nansen, among others, claimed that Smeerenburg had been a major city in the 1600s, with shops, churches, brothels and thousands of visitors during the summer. Archa-
eological excavations have debunked this myth, and it is estimated that at most there were a few hundred people living there. Here is a contemporary account of a whaling station on
Svalbard from 1639, painted by Cornelis de Man, on display in the Dutch State Museum in Amsterdam.