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Polar ghost towns

I don't know much about the Antarctic, except that it's cold and penguins live there. However, I'm not surprised to hear that it's filled with ghost towns. As one blogger puts it, 'For obvious reasons, Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon.'

It's barely inhabited – around 2,500 people at any given time. And loads of people have died there, providing a higher ratio of deaths per capita than most places. Given the inhospitability of the place, it seems quite a few of the departed souls could be a little unsettled.

Visit Antarctica, and it won't be long before you find an abandoned outpost. The most famous is the camp built by Robert Scott in 1911 on Ross Island, but the oldest is at Whaler's Bay on the eerily named Deception Island, which was abandoned in 1931 when the market for whale oil bottomed out.

It seems one island, South Georgia (under dispute during the Falklands War), is even becoming a bit of a tourist attraction. It has seven abandoned towns, the best known and best preserved of which is Grytviken.

The jetty, church and industrial buildings have recently been renovated by the local government, but no-one lives there, except apparently for the museum curator and his family. Now that's dedication to a cause… RM

Images: Wikipedia; Artificial Owl; Dark Roasted Blend

2009 Jan 7 2 responses. share this

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