Whaling and sealing

Remains of the whaling station's boilers

Over the next few years, Deception became a focal point of the short-lived fur-sealing industry in the South Shetlands. The industry began with a handful of ships in the 1819–1820 summer season, rising to nearly a hundred in 1821–1822. While the island did not have a large seal population, it was a perfect natural harbour, mostly free from ice and winds, and a convenient rendezvous point. Some men likely lived ashore in tents or shacks for short periods during the summer, though no archaeological or documentary evidence survives to confirm this. Massive overhunting meant that the fur seals neared extinction in the South Shetlands within a few years, and the sealing industry collapsed as quickly as it had begun. Deception was abandoned again in approximately 1825.^[11]

Sealing captain Robert Fildes charted Port Foster in 1820–1821, which in 1829 became the first published Antarctica nautical chart.^[3]

In 1829, the British Naval Expedition to the South Atlantic under the command of Captain Henry Foster in HMS Chanticleer stopped at Deception. The expedition conducted a topographic survey and scientific experiments, particularly pendulum and magnetic observations.^[16] A watercolour made by Lieutenant Kendall of the Chanticleer during the visit may be the first image made of the island.^[11] A subsequent visit by the American elephant-sealer Ohio in 1842 reported the first recorded volcanic activity, with the southern shore "in flames".^[11]

Flensing at Whalers Bay, Deception Island. By 1912–1913, the island had 12 factory ships, and 27 catchers, occupying 200 people, with 3,000 rotting whale carcasses in the Whalers Bay area.^[3]: 4

The second phase of human activity at Deception began in the early 20th century. In 1904, an active whaling industry was established at South Georgia, taking advantage of new technology and an almost untouched population of whales to make rapid profits. It spread south into the South Shetland Islands, where the lack of shore-based infrastructure meant that the whales had to be towed to moored factory ships for processing; these needed a sheltered anchorage and a plentiful supply of fresh water, both of which could be found at Deception. In 1906, the Norwegian-Chilean whaling company Sociedad Ballenera de Magallanes started using Whalers Bay as a base for a single ship, the Gobernador Bories.^[11]

Other whalers followed, with several hundred men resident at Deception during the Antarctic summers and as many as 13 ships operating in peak years. In 1908, the British government formally declared the island to be part of the Falkland Islands Dependencies, thus under British control, establishing postal services and appointing a magistrate and customs officer for the island. The magistrate was to ensure that whaling companies were paying appropriate licence fees to the Falklands government and ensuring adherence to catch quotas. A cemetery was built in 1908, a radio station in 1912, a hand-operated railway also in 1912,^[17] and a small permanent magistrate's house in 1914.^[11] The cemetery, by far the largest in Antarctica, held graves for 35 men along with a memorial to 10 more presumed drowned.^[18]

The destroyed British base

These were not the only constructions; as the factory ships of the period were only able to strip the blubber from whales and could not use the carcasses, a permanent on-shore station was established by the Norwegian company Hvalfangerselskabet Hektor A/S in 1912 – up to an estimated 40% of the available oil was being wasted by the ship-based system. This was the only successful shore-based industry ever to operate in Antarctica, reaping high profits in its first years.^[11] A number of exploring expeditions visited Deception during these years, including the Wilkins-Hearst expedition of 1928, when a Lockheed Vega was flown from a beach airstrip on the first successful flights in Antarctica.^[11]

The development of pelagic whaling in the 1920s, where factory ships fitted with a slipway could tow aboard entire whales for processing, meant that whaling companies were no longer tied to sheltered anchorages. A boom in pelagic Antarctic whaling followed, with companies now free to ignore quotas and escape the costs of licences. This rapidly led to overproduction of oil and a collapse in the market, and the less profitable and more heavily regulated shore-based companies had trouble competing. In early 1931, the Hektor factory finally ceased operation, ending commercial whaling at the island entirely.^[11]

Scientific research

On 16 November 1928, Hubert Wilkins made the first Antarctic flight from a Whalers Bay ash runway.^[3]

Deception remained uninhabited for a decade, but was revisited in 1941 by the British auxiliary warship HMS Queen of Bermuda, which destroyed the oil tanks and some remaining supplies to ensure it could not be used as a German supply base.^[11] In 1942, an Argentinean party aboard the Primero de Mayo visited and left signs and painted flags declaring the site Argentinean territory; the following year, a British party with HMS Carnarvon Castle returned to remove the signs.^[19]

In 1944, a British expedition under Lieutenant James Marr^[20] established a short-lived base on Deception Island as part of Operation Tabarin, which was carried out during the Second World War to deny safe anchorages to enemy raiding vessels and to gather meteorological data for allied shipping in the South Atlantic. It also had the effect of strengthening British claims to the Falkland Island Dependencies that had begun being challenged^[21] by Argentina and Chile. Operation Tabarin would deny use of the area to the Kriegsmarine, which was known to use remote islands as rendezvous points, and address a fear that Japan might attempt to seize the Falkland Islands. Following the end of the war, the research begun by Operation Tabarin continued in subsequent years, ultimately becoming the British Antarctic Survey.^[22]

In 1961, Argentina's president Arturo Frondizi visited the island to show his country's interest. Regular visits were made by other countries operating in the Antarctic, including the 1964 visit of the US Coast Guard icebreaker Eastwind, which ran aground inside the harbour.^[23]

However, the volcano returned to activity in 1967 and 1969, destroying the existing scientific stations. Both British and Chilean stations were demolished, and the island was again abandoned for several years. The final major volcanic eruption was reported by the Russian Bellingshausen station on King George Island and the Chilean station Arturo Prat on Greenwich Island; both stations experienced major falls of ash on 13 August 1970.^{[24](p 294)}

Argentine Base Decepción (2016)

In 2000, there were two summer-only scientific stations, the Spanish Gabriel de Castilla Base^[25] and the Argentinian Decepción Station.^[26]

Remains of previous structures at Whalers Bay include rusting boilers and tanks, an aircraft hangar, and the British scientific station house (Biscoe House), with the middle torn out by the 1969 mudflows. A bright orange derelict airplane fuselage, which is that of a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter that belonged to the Royal Air Force, was recovered in 2004. Plans to restore the airplane and return it to the island have been made.^[26]

The derelict hangar

The Russian cruise ship MV Lyubov Orlova ran aground at Deception Island on 27 November 2006.^[27] She was towed off by the Spanish Navy icebreaker Las Palmas and made her own way to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. She later became a ghost ship in the North Atlantic after the towing line parted during an operation to scrap the vessel in the Dominican Republic.

Aguirre Cerda

President Pedro Aguirre Cerda Station was a Chilean Antarctic base, located at Pendulum Cove on Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands, inaugurated in 1955. It was evacuated in December 1967 when volcanic eruptions forced the evacuation of the base.

Deception

Deception Station is an Argentine base located at Deception Island. The station was founded on 25 January 1948 and was a year-round station until December 1967, when volcanic eruptions forced the evacuation of the base. Since then, it has been inhabited only during the summer.

Gabriel de Castilla

The Spanish Gabriel de Castilla Base

Gabriel de Castilla Base is a Spanish research station located on Deception Island. The station was constructed in 1990.^[28]

Gutiérrez Vargas Refuge

The Gutiérrez Vargas Refuge, named after an aviation captain who died on 30 December 1955, was located at 1 km (0.62 mi) from Aguirre Cerda Station and was inaugurated on 12 February 1956. Its purpose was to serve as a refuge for the members of the station in case of fire. On 4 December 1967 the refuge was definitively abandoned, as was the Aguirre Cerda Station, due to a violent volcanic eruption. The remains of the refuge structure can still be seen on the beach where it was located.

Station B

In early 1944, a party of men from Operation Tabarin, a British expedition, established a permanent scientific base named Station B.^[29] This was occupied until 5 December 1967, when an eruption forced a temporary withdrawal. It was used again between 4 December 1968 and 23 February 1969, when further volcanic activity caused it to be abandoned.^{[24](p 291–292)}

Antarctic specially protected areas

Eleven terrestrial sites have been collectively designated as an Antarctic specially protected area (ASPA 140), primarily for their botanic and ecological values, because the island has the greatest number of rare plant species of any place in the Antarctic. This is largely due to frequent volcanic activity creating new substrates for plant colonisation:^[31]

• Collins Point (site A) contains good examples of long-established vegetation, with high species diversity and several rarities.
• Crater Lake (site B) has a scoria-covered lava tongue with a diverse cryptogamic flora, and exceptional development of turf-forming mosses.
• An unnamed hill at the southern end of Fumarole Bay (site C) has several rare species of mosses that have colonised the heated soil crust close to a line of volcanic vents.
• Fumarole Bay (site D) is geologically complex with the most diverse flora on the island.
• West Stonethrow Ridge (site E) supports several rare mosses, liverworts, and lichens.
• Telefon Bay (site F) has all its surfaces dating from 1967, thus allowing accurate monitoring of colonisation by plants and animals.
• Pendulum Cove (site G) is another known-age site being colonised by mosses and lichens.
• Mount Pond (site H) contains exceptional moss, liverwort, and lichen communities.
• Perchue Cone (site J) is an ash and cinder cone with rare mosses.
• Ronald Hill to Kroner Lake (site K) is another known-age site being colonised by numerous cryptogam species, and with a unique algal community on the lake shore.
• South East Point (site L) supports the most extensive population of Antarctic pearlwort known in the Antarctic region.

In addition, two marine sites in Port Foster have collectively been designated ASPA 145, to protect their benthic communities.^[32]

Important bird area

Baily Head, a prominent headland forming the easternmost extremity of the island, has been identified as an important bird area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a very large breeding colony of chinstrap penguins (100,000 pairs). The 78 ha (190-acre) IBA comprises the ice-free headland and about 800 metres (0.50 mi) of beach on either side of it. Other birds known to nest at the site include brown skuas, Cape petrels, and snowy sheathbills.^[33]