SPITZBERGEN 23 



but England and the Netherlands both claimed Spitzbergen 

 and its adjacent seas, on the ground, the one that an English, 

 the other that a Dutch, navigator had discovered it. The two 

 navigators were Sir Hugh Willoughby, who made a voyage to 

 northern Russia in 1553, and Jacob van Heemskerk, who sailed 

 early in May, 1596, in command of an expedition of two vessels 

 — of which William Barendts was the pilot of one — to search for 

 a Northeast Passage to the Orient, but stood approximately due 

 north until he came upon a strange land that the pilots believed 

 to be part of the coast of Greenland. The Dutch gave Spitzbergen 

 its name by reason of its sharply pointed mountains, but it was 

 known for years to the English as Greenland — for no reason yet 

 discovered. 



Thither the European whalemen soon resorted in growing 

 numbers. By 1613, ships from England, the Netherlands, 

 Flanders, and France were there — and all quarrelling like 

 sparrows. The next year fourteen whaling vessels and four 

 men-of-war came from the Netherlands alone, and in 1615 

 Denmark unsuccessfully attempted to hold the whaling against 

 all other nations by sending a squadron of three men-of-war to 

 enforce her demands. 



In 1617, the English whalemen were more successful than 

 those of any other nation — they came home with nineteen 

 hundred tuns of oil — and for a number of years, in which the 

 various nations had varying success, the Dutch had, as a 

 general thing, little luck. Nevertheless, they were diligent, 

 careful, and persistent. Alas, that they kept no logs! Fogs 

 and contrary winds and the manifold dangers of the Arctic 

 seas demanded close attention, with action rather than re- 

 cording, and what little was ever written of these voyages was 

 written from memory and undoubtedly with all the weaknesses 

 of that form of history. 



In 1623 they took with them, in extra large ships, the material 

 for houses, tabernacles, and try-works, to be built at Spitz- 

 bergen, and established the first whaling base there, which 

 they appropriately called Smeerenburg. As an example of 

 their distressing lack of records, we have also the confusing 



