Bay of Whales

While the Ross Sea stretches considerably further south – encompassing the Gould Coast, located around 320 kilometres (170 nautical miles) from the South Pole – the majority of this expanse is covered by the Ross Ice Shelf, rather than open sea.

Ernest Shackleton named the feature on January 24, 1908, during the Nimrod Expedition, because of the large number of whales seen near this location.

During his quest for the South Pole, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen established a temporary base, which he named Framheim, at the Bay of Whales.

A survey by the second Byrd expedition in 1934 determined that the feature lay at the junction of two separate ice systems, the movements of which are influenced by the presence of Roosevelt Island.

Commander Glen Jacobsen, USN, who visited aboard the USS Atka in January 1955, found that calving of the ice shelf rendered the iceport temporarily unusable.