Bay of Whales

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Ice breaker research vessel using the Whales Bay ice harbor.

The Bay of Whales ([78°30′S 164°20′W]) is an iceport indenting the front of Ross Ice Shelf just northward of Roosevelt Island. A natural ice harbor which generally forms here, it served as the base site for Roald Amundsen's successful dash to the South Pole, 1911, the Byrd Antarctic Expeditions of 1928-1930 and 1933-1935, and for the West Base of U.S. Antarctic Service, 1939-1941.

The configuration of the iceport is continuously changing. A survey by the 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. Cdr. Glen Jacobsen, USN, who visited in the Atka in January 1955, found that calving of the ice shelf rendered the iceport temporarily unusable. The feature was so named by Ernest Shackleton in the Nimrod, January 24, 1908, because of the large number of whales seen in it.