s.s. viking

S.S. Viking was a wooden-hulled sealing ship constructed in 1881, by the Nylands Shipyard at Christiana, Norway. In 1904, S.S. Viking was purchased by the Bowring brothers of St. John’s, Newfoundland for the sealing industry. 

S.S. Viking was made famous by her role in the 1931 film “The Viking”. During her use in the seal hunt in Newfoundland, the ship was twice commissioned by a film producer to make a feature film. Varick Frissell, the director and his crew sailed to the ice floes aboard S.S. Viking.

White Thunder, the film's original name, was screened early in 1931, at the Nickel Theatre in St. John's. Following the premiere, Paramount declined to release the film. Frissell decided that additional footage was required.

On March 9, 1931, the S.S. Viking, left port. She carried 138 sealers, the film crew and two stowaways. Late in the day on March 15, 1931, heavy ice was encountered off White Bay. Captain Keane ordered the ship butted into the ice jam to secure her for the night. At 9 p.m., an explosion blew the stern off the vessel, instantly killing the film crew. The ship then caught fire, leaving survivors to fend on the ice. Many of the survivors made the over-ice trek to Horse Island, 8 miles distant, while others were rescued by steamers, in total 28 were killed, including Frissell.

This rifle was built by Alexander Henry of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1885, it is  Falling block, Henry Action in 450, 3 1/4 Black Powder Express, the Serial number is 10.

oldguns.ca, Virtual Museum Collection.

A 191 foot sealing ship,  S.S. Neptune was built in 1872-73 by Alexander Stephen & Sons of Dundee, Scotland. S.S. Neptune went to the ice as a sealer for 67 years with twelve different captains. Post cards of the day called her the "King of Sealers" a legend beyond gender, S.S. Neptune had a regal career and earned a place in Canadian and Newfoundland history. The Canadian Government made stamp in her honour.   Its record catch was 42,242 seals. It remained in operation until 1943 when it sunk while in wartime service in 1943.  The Neptune was a wooden whaling and sealing ship, 684 gross tons, 191' long, built in Dundee, Scotland in 1873. Registered in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1888, # 115. Official number 66753, owned at that time by the Avalon Steam Ship Company of St. John's. Went to the Ice for the last time in 1941.

Over the years, the Canadian government chartered the ship a number of times, in 1903-04, the DGS Neptune conducted the first Canadian scientific survey of the Arctic. Under Capt. Samuel W. Bartlett, scientific explorers documented their voyage in “The Cruise of the Neptune”, The crew completed two years of research in fields as broad as anthropology and botany.

Canada did not effectively exercise jurisdiction over its Arctic territories, where men of various nationalities carried out whaling, hunting, trading and mining without any restriction. The Dominion Government Expedition of 1903-04 on board the Neptune constituted the first significant step towards the assertion of Canadian authority in the eastern Arctic, particularly in Hudson Bay. Its members established a police post, implemented customs procedures, prohibited trade in the hides of musk-ox (an endangered species), and informed the Eskimos that Edward VII was their king. In addition to demonstrating the Dominion Government's authority over its Arctic territories, the Neptune Expedition helped to promote the decline of the whaling industry, which for decades had provided the economic basis of Eskimo life in certain regions. 

In 1915 she became a troop carrier taking the Newfoundland Regiment across the Atlantic to serve during WW I.  Neptune eventually returned to sealing, and in 1925 she achieved the recognition of taking over 1 million pelts.  In 1934, ownership passed to the Ungava Steamship Company. S.S. Neptune went to the ice for the last time in 1941. Job Brothers bought back the ship at a public auction in February 1943 for use hauling coal. In March, of that same year, S.S. Neptune sank near St. John's, with all hands surviving.

This rifle was manufactured by Joseph Bourne and Sons, Birmingham, England, in 1886, it is built as a Farquharson Action (single shot falling block) in 450, 3 1/4 Black Powder Express, cartridge.  Serial number is 14.

oldguns.ca, Virtual Museum Collection.

Nimrod was a wooden-hulled, three-masted sailing ship with auxiliary  steam engine that was built in Scotland in 1867 as a whaler. She was the ship with which Ernest Shackleton made his Nimrod Expedition to Antartica  in 1908–09. After the expedition she returned to commercial service, and in 1919 she was wrecked in the North Sea with the loss of ten members of her crew.

Alexander Stephen and Sons  built Nimrod inDundee.  She was launched on 6 December 1866, and completed in January 1867. Her registered length was 136.0 ft (41.5 m), her beam was 26.9 ft (8.2 m) and her depth was 16.0 ft (4.9 m). Her tonnages were 334GRT  and 227NRT. She was rigged as aschooner. She had a single screw, driven by a 50 hp steam engine built by Gourlay Brothers of Dundee. Her principal owner was Thomas B Job, who registered her at Liverpool and used her for whaling and sealing.

By 1874 Nimrod was rigged as a barquentine By 1888 her owners were listed as Job Brothers. By 1889 she had the code letters KWVT, and in that year Job Brothers re-registered her in St. John’s Newfoundland.  She was used extensively in Newfoundland as a sealer and was eventually sold to be used in Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole. 

Ernest Shackleton’s finest achievement as an explorer was the ground-breaking 1907-09 Nimrod expedition. If the later Endurance Expedition, was a monumental model of leadership and survival in the most demanding circumstances, Nimrod was a tour de force of pure exploration and the first time Shackleton touched greatness on the ice.

On Nimrod – officially the British Antarctic Expedition – Shackleton marched to within 97 miles of the South Pole despite appalling hardship, and for the first time displayed the remarkable skills which proved so vital on Endurance.

The expedition, which was under-funded and cobbled together in a hurry, famously discovered the unknown route to the Pole and paved the way for Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott. It also discovered the location of the South Magnetic Pole, assembled a pioneering scientific programme and among the other Antarctic ‘firsts’ were the first motor car and first printing press. Not a single life was lost.  Shackleton returned from Scott’s Discovery expedition in 1903 determined to launch his own attempt to stand at the South Pole. He got his wish in mid-1907 with Nimrod. Despite severe problems, Nimrod landed at Cape Royds, Ross Island, in early 1908 to start preparations for the assault on the Pole the following spring.  After sitting out the winter, the 34-year-old Shackleton began the march on October 29, accompanied by Frank Wild, Jameson Boyd Adams and Eric Marshall and four badly-suited and struggling Manchurian ponies dragging sledges.

The plan was a trek of nearly 1,720 miles in 91 days, a daunting target of nearly 19 miles a day over hundreds of miles of mostly unknown terrain. By the second week the four were travelling at less than seven miles a day and Shackleton calculated that by eating less at each meal he might extend their journey to 110 days. (Confusingly, Shackleton measured distances in both geographic and statue miles on the journey.)

Shackleton’s most notable discovery was the mighty Beardmore Glacier, which runs through the towering chain of Transantarctic Mountains blocking the path south. Among the world’s largest, the glacier is 125 miles long and 25 miles wide, rising to over 10,000ft onto the Polar Plateau. It was the gateway to the South Pole and later followed step-by-step by Captain Scott.

With the ponies now dead and hunger gnawing at the men, the group hauled their sledges up the glacier for weeks, collapsing exhausted and starving at the end of each arduous day. Camped at 9,500ft on the Polar Plateau, they celebrated Christmas with a spoonful of crème de menthe and a cigar. The thermometer showed 48ºC of frost.

The party was probably eating less than half the 6,000 calories needed for the back-breaking slog but with the Pole still hundreds of miles away, Shackleton once more cut the rations. Camped in the thin air at almost two miles above sea level, the men were in a shocking state. Apart from ravenous hunger and exhaustion, they suffered dizziness, nosebleeds or piercing headaches and three of the four were so cold their temperatures did not register on a thermometer.

The march continued into the face of a driving wind which sliced through their meagre clothing and magnified the discomfort. Outwardly Shackleton was positive but others were concerned that, in his determination to lead from the front, he was pushing himself too hard. No one knew where he found the resolve and endurance. By early January 1909, however, Shackleton realised the dream was fading and Pole was slipping from his grasp. A gruelling 10-hour shift in the sledging harness often brought them only a few miles nearer to their goal. Almost paralyzed by the cold after a day’s march, one of the team said, “flesh and blood would stand no more”. While it was possible to dump all but essential supplies, the reality was Shackleton had enough food to get to the Pole – but not enough to get back to Nimrod.

The crucial decision of when to turn back showed Shackleton’s ability to make life-or-death decisions, even while under enormous stress. Extreme cold, thin air, exhaustion and hunger frequently blurs the reasoning but Shackleton’s clear thinking and fine judgement was the difference between living and dying.

The final act came on January 9, 1909, when the quartet left most supplies behind and rushed forward, half running, half-walking, to reach the furthest south any human had ever stood. Pausing only briefly to be photographed flying the Union flag, Shackleton wrote: “We have done our best.” The precise spot was 88º 23’ S, some 97 geographic miles from the South Pole.  Shackleton’s brave decision to turn back with the Pole perhaps 10-14 days across the horizon was an astonishing act of courage. It showed that, above all, Shackleton placed the welfare of his men above personal glory. One of his colleagues on the Polar Plateau that day calculated that delaying the return by just one hour would have resulted in the deaths of all four.

The return trek, another harrowing march on half-rations, was a race for life and came perilously close to disaster on several occasions as ravenous hunger and extreme fatigue gripped them. Although Shackleton came near to breaking down, he never lost control and even showed incredible kindness to his struggling comrades. At one stage his deputy, Wild, suffered a severe bout of dysentery and the only food he could keep down were dry biscuits. Although supplies had run out, Shackleton had kept one in his pocket for breakfast and generously gave his last remaining biscuit to the gaunt Wild. When he protested, Shackleton threatened to throw the biscuit away if Wild did not eat it. Wild survived.  

The journey finally came to end in early March 1909 after a round trip of 1,755 miles. Shackleton had somehow eked out 91 days’ rations to 120 days. One of the men had lost two stone in weight.

Shackleton was feted across the world and became an instant celebrity on his triumphant return. He was knighted by the King at Buckingham Palace, the government paid off a large slice of the expedition’s hefty debts and packed houses throughout the UK, Europe and America flocked to hear from the charismatic explorer who came so near to standing at the South Pole. When asked to name the qualities for being a successful Polar explorer, Shackleton once declared: “First, optimism; second, patience; third, physical endurance; fourth, idealism; fifth, and last, courage.”  These qualities were fully demonstrated on the Nimrod expedition where only a modest few extra pounds of food stood between Shackleton and the ultimate prize.

Roald Amundsen, the outstanding Polar explorer of the age, said Shackleton’s exploits on Nimrod were “the most brilliant incident in the history of Antarctic exploration.”  Shackleton’s name, said Amundsen, would “always be written in the annals of Antarctic exploration in letters of fire.” The other question, of course, was Shackleton’s personal feelings about turning back only 97 miles from the Pole. When his wife, Emily asked, Shackleton casually remarked: “I thought you’d rather have a live donkey than a dead lion.”  Some donkey.

This rifle is a 450 express, fields patent, single shot, falling block, the action is marked with his patent number (1927) of May 17, 1877.  Field produced about 2500 actions in all (according to Jonathan Kirton in The British Falling Block Rifle From 1865.)  Scholefield was one of several makers who built their own rifles on the sought-after actions.  Others included Purdey, Holland & Holland, W. W. Greener, W. & C. Scott and James MacNaughton & Son.  This example has a 28" barrel with very good bore.  The rib is engraved: SCHOLEFIELD. LONDON & BIRMINGHAM.  The rear sights consist of one standing and two folding leaves with platinum sight lines, marked 100/200/300.  It shows hard use which is consistent with rifles used in the sealing trade.  

oldguns.ca, virtual museum collection.