Episode 2 of 4
Signing of the Abandonment Compact
- When
- 12 September 1871
- Where
- Point Belcher
Captains gathered on the Florida to sign a document explaining the necessity of abandoning the fleet due to trapped ice and lack of provisions.
On September 12, masters of whaleships at Point Belcher concluded their vessels could not be freed. With provisions insufficient for three months and no food or fuel available in the barren country, they decided to abandon the ships and attempt to reach other vessels south of the ice.
Sources
- Whaling disaster of 1871 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-24
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.