WILLIS: Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands lies just off the Antarctic Peninsula.
Music
WILLIS: Its a haunting place where tendrils of steam rise from the still active volcano beneath the leaden sea.
This place is full of the ghosts of those who once laboured here.
Theres a long and wonderful history down here of the interaction of people and the environment. For a long time it was a whaling base, until suddenly nature kicked everybody out with a very violent volcanic eruption.
Music
WILLIS: Hopefully that wont happen today as I visit with the tour ship Polar Pioneer, along with 50 tourists.
First spied and claimed by the British, it was the Norwegians who eventually built a whaling settlement here, as our tour leader Howard Whelan explains.
Willis: When did they start using Deception Island as a base for whaling, do you know?
HOWARD : It was early 1900s. They first brought in a floating whaling station. It was here from about 1906, or some time around there. At one time they had about 3000 carcasses in the bay and it was a health hazard. So the Norwegians got together with the Chileans, and they decided to put in a land based whaling station, which is what you really see that remains here. And that operated here until the middle of the 1900s.
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WILLIS: The sheer size of the equipment left behind by the whalers stands as a mute testament to how profitable whaling once was. It was whale oil from here that lubricated the machine guns of the First World War.
This is the rendering plant where whales were reduced to oil. No one knows exactly how many whales were killed to feed this monster, but looking at the scale of this industrial scale carnage, there must have been quite a lot.
Music
WILLIS: But nature wasnt always happy about this slaughter in her last remaining wilderness.
WILLIS: Oh, today the water is absolutely freezing. But Mother Nature has a certain ways of talking to people at this place. In 1921, the water in this bay got so hot because of volcanic action that it stripped the paint off the hulls of the boats that were moored here. It was kind of natures way of saying, Get out!
Music
WILLIS: The whalers finally gave in and moved on in 1933, but their legacy still provided problems for the nominal landlords in London.
WILLIS: These enormous drums were set up by the whalers. The largest were for storing fuel oil for the rendering plant and for the ships, and the smaller ones were for the whale oil to be exported all across the world. Come the Second World War, the British were worried that the Germans might use them for storing fuel for their fleet. So they cut these enormous holes in them.
After World War 2, other nations began to take an interest in this remote and desolate place. It was claim and counterclaim with no rules and little honour.
The Argentines, the Chileans and the British squabbled over Deception Island from the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s. A good example is here.
This hut was built by the Chileans and you can still see the original green Chile paint. But then someone came along and painted it Argentinean blue.
WILLIS: The British maintained ownership of the island and built an airstrip here. It was from this spot in 1911 that the first flight over Antarctica took off.
When I was here last year, there was still the remains of a single-engined Otter De Haviland sitting right there. But over the last year an American billionaire decided he wanted to salvage it. He was legally in the right. But the Poms werent going to have that, so they squirreled it away. No one knows where it is now but its supposed to be in safe keeping. It looks like the ghosts of Deception Island are never going to be laid to rest.
WILLIS: Like on so many other islands, the occupation of Deception Island came to an end when the volcano really blew its stack in 1968. This started a six year cycle of violent eruptions.
The few occupants of the small Chilean, Argentine and British bases fled for their lives as a rain of clinker and ash buried the last remains of the ghosts of Deception Island.
Today, its just tourists who visit Deception Island to stroll among the ruins during the brief Antarctic summer.
Music
WILLIS: This decaying remnant of a bygone era is one of the most visited locations on the whole continent. But they step lightly fearing to disturb the ghost of the past or the slumbering soul of the grumbling volcano.
Music
Reporter: Paul Willis
Camera: Richard Corfield
Editor: Bryan Milliss
Producer: Richard Corfield
Music
WILLIS: Its a haunting place where tendrils of steam rise from the still active volcano beneath the leaden sea.
This place is full of the ghosts of those who once laboured here.
Theres a long and wonderful history down here of the interaction of people and the environment. For a long time it was a whaling base, until suddenly nature kicked everybody out with a very violent volcanic eruption.
Music
WILLIS: Hopefully that wont happen today as I visit with the tour ship Polar Pioneer, along with 50 tourists.
First spied and claimed by the British, it was the Norwegians who eventually built a whaling settlement here, as our tour leader Howard Whelan explains.
Willis: When did they start using Deception Island as a base for whaling, do you know?
HOWARD : It was early 1900s. They first brought in a floating whaling station. It was here from about 1906, or some time around there. At one time they had about 3000 carcasses in the bay and it was a health hazard. So the Norwegians got together with the Chileans, and they decided to put in a land based whaling station, which is what you really see that remains here. And that operated here until the middle of the 1900s.
Music
WILLIS: The sheer size of the equipment left behind by the whalers stands as a mute testament to how profitable whaling once was. It was whale oil from here that lubricated the machine guns of the First World War.
This is the rendering plant where whales were reduced to oil. No one knows exactly how many whales were killed to feed this monster, but looking at the scale of this industrial scale carnage, there must have been quite a lot.
Music
WILLIS: But nature wasnt always happy about this slaughter in her last remaining wilderness.
WILLIS: Oh, today the water is absolutely freezing. But Mother Nature has a certain ways of talking to people at this place. In 1921, the water in this bay got so hot because of volcanic action that it stripped the paint off the hulls of the boats that were moored here. It was kind of natures way of saying, Get out!
Music
WILLIS: The whalers finally gave in and moved on in 1933, but their legacy still provided problems for the nominal landlords in London.
WILLIS: These enormous drums were set up by the whalers. The largest were for storing fuel oil for the rendering plant and for the ships, and the smaller ones were for the whale oil to be exported all across the world. Come the Second World War, the British were worried that the Germans might use them for storing fuel for their fleet. So they cut these enormous holes in them.
After World War 2, other nations began to take an interest in this remote and desolate place. It was claim and counterclaim with no rules and little honour.
The Argentines, the Chileans and the British squabbled over Deception Island from the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s. A good example is here.
This hut was built by the Chileans and you can still see the original green Chile paint. But then someone came along and painted it Argentinean blue.
WILLIS: The British maintained ownership of the island and built an airstrip here. It was from this spot in 1911 that the first flight over Antarctica took off.
When I was here last year, there was still the remains of a single-engined Otter De Haviland sitting right there. But over the last year an American billionaire decided he wanted to salvage it. He was legally in the right. But the Poms werent going to have that, so they squirreled it away. No one knows where it is now but its supposed to be in safe keeping. It looks like the ghosts of Deception Island are never going to be laid to rest.
WILLIS: Like on so many other islands, the occupation of Deception Island came to an end when the volcano really blew its stack in 1968. This started a six year cycle of violent eruptions.
The few occupants of the small Chilean, Argentine and British bases fled for their lives as a rain of clinker and ash buried the last remains of the ghosts of Deception Island.
Today, its just tourists who visit Deception Island to stroll among the ruins during the brief Antarctic summer.
Music
WILLIS: This decaying remnant of a bygone era is one of the most visited locations on the whole continent. But they step lightly fearing to disturb the ghost of the past or the slumbering soul of the grumbling volcano.
Music
Reporter: Paul Willis
Camera: Richard Corfield
Editor: Bryan Milliss
Producer: Richard Corfield