Petter Sørlle
made many whaling trips in the Antarctic.
He invented the stern slipway for factory ships in 1925. With this
invention whales could be hauled up into the factory ships at sea,
thus allowing them to operate throughout the open seas of the Southern,
or Antarctic, Ocean without returning to the land station.
But to Petter's advantage, I must add that he also wrote many letters
to newspapers and authorities here in Norway, warning that there
must be made international regulations, in order to protect the
whales from extermination.
He also invented a fire ladder and had lots of other ideas. He'd
wake up in the middle of the night and rush to the bedroom window
and make notes and sketches with charcoal on the window sill in
the moon light/street light (so as not to wake up my grandmother).
They had five daughters; Reidun, Marion, Gerd, Margrethe and my
mother Signe-Marie.
The season my grandfather mapped and named Signy Island, he also
mapped and named three tiny islands after his (at the time) three
daughters. Reid Island, Mariholm, and Gerd Island. (Reid and Gerd
are located north of Signy Island, Mariholm to the south) (Holm
is a Norwegian word for a very tiny island) He also mapped and named Sørlle
Rocks, west of Coronation Island. (Coronation Island has a bay to
the east called Petter Bay, but I'm not sure if that was his?)
He missed his girls very much when out to sea for months and months
at a time. And he spoiled them no end when he was home!
My grandmother's full name was Signy Therese (maiden name: Gulbraar)
Sørlle. Born May 30, 1892 in Tønsberg. Died Jan 9, 1988 in Oslo.
Buried in Tønsberg.
My grandfather's full name was Petter Martin Mattias Koch Sørlle.
Born Feb 16, 1884, in Thune near Tønsberg. Died May 29, 1933 in
Tønsberg. Buried in Tønsberg.
They were married in April, 1909 in Oslo.
By the time Signy was twenty, they had three children!
My mother, their youngest (1924), was only 9 when Petter died. But
just like her older sisters, she has very fond memories of Petter.
He was sweet, understanding, inventive and playful.
Signy and Petter loved each other very much. She was very sweet
and also very beautiful. As I mentioned before, he missed her very
much when he had to go away for such long stretches at a time. Maybe
that's why he named the very beautiful Signy Island after her?
Unfortunately I never got to know Petter, since he died so relatively
young. But Signy lived to be almost 96, and I have very, very fond
memories of here. We all called her `Mimi´. Mimi was ever so proud
of you people at Signy Island! And very, very touched that you `boys´
remembered her birthday every year! (And I remember those wonderful
bouquets as well)
Anne Lind - Norway January
2005
A map of Signy. I tried to
find a "normal map" but couldn't and then spotted the obvious - this
map that I made and hangs over my desk. It is of whalebone cut using
a fine bladed saw in the Antarctic winter in the way that many of us
used to do, spending the time making mementoes and souvenirs of our
time with available materials.
Nice pieces of whalebone were at a
premium for such work. Whale bone itself was in plentiful supply not
too far away as the BAS base was built on the site of a Norwegian
whaling station that was built by the Tønsberg Hvalfangeri A/S
company in 1920-21 and manned during the summer months only in the
late 1920's.
When whales had been flensed of their blubber and
other useful products, the carcass was pushed back into the sea to
float away and decompose. Many of the carcasses didn't make it very
far and there were substantial amounts of whalebone around beaches
and coves near to the base.
The date on the map says 1986, but
the whale that the bone came from would have died 50-60 years
earlier.
Places marked from top moving
clockwise are:
North Point, Robin Peak, Jane Peak,
Base 'H', Rusty Bluff, Gourlay (peninsula), Shagnasty, Cummings,
Tioga (central), Foca.
Signy
Island in the South Orkney's group is 4 miles long and less than 3 miles
wide, lying to the south of the middle of Coronation Island. Unnamed at
the time, the appearance of the island was roughly plotted on James Weddell's
chart of 1825.
