Carl Anton Larsen

Infobox Person
name = Carl Anton Larsen

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image_size = 200px
caption = Carl-Anton-Larsen
birth_date = August 27, 1860
birth_place = Østre Halsen, Norway
death_date = December 8, 1924
death_place = Ross Sea, Antarctica
education =
occupation = Whaler and explorer
spouse =
parents =
children =

Carl Anton Larsen (1860 – 1924) was a Norwegian mariner and Antarctic explorer, and the founder of Grytviken, South Georgia. [http://www.jamescairdsociety.com/southgeorgia.php The James Caird Society] The Larsen Ice Shelf is named after him.

Larsen left school at the age of 14 to join his father at sea, and by the time he was 20 he had earned his master's license. By 1895 was captain of a whaler. Larsen led an expedition to Antarctica, in command of the "Jason", from 1892 through 1894. ["Antarctica". Sydney: Reader's Digest, 1985, pp. 126-127, 152-159, 296-297, 305.] Later he captained the ship "Antarctic", part of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04. [Child, Jack. "Antarctica and South American Geopolitics: Frozen Lebensraum". New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, pp. 13-14, 27-28, 72.] During this mission some of his crew over-wintered for 10 months at Snow Hill Island [Lonely Planet, "Antarctica: a Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit", Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996, pp. 23, 278-279, 307.] , and after his ship was crushed by ice and sank, he and his crew spent a winter (1903) on Paulet Island, surviving on penguins and seals before being rescued by the Argentine corvette "Uruguay".

In 1904 with Argentine, Norwegian and British capital he founded the first Antarctic whaling corporation, the Compañía Argentina de Pesca, and in 1910, he adopted British citizenship along with his family. [Stewart, Andrew, "Antarctica: An Encyclopedia". London: McFarland and Co., 1990 (2 volumes), p. 558.] [U.S. National Science Foundation, "Geographic Names of the Antarctic", Fred G. Alberts, ed. Washington: NSF, 1980.]

ee also

* Grytviken
* History of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
* Compañía Argentina de Pesca

References