The Fascinating History of Whaling & Sealing
The fascinating history of whaling and sealing in Norway is worth reading about before you come to this part of the world. I know that many would not associate whaling and sealing with being fascinating, considering the stigma associated with them today. However, I think it’s essential to understand how life in Norway was 200 years ago and why it was much more of a necessity than it is today. I’ve conducted a thorough examination of the history of whaling and sealing in Norway, aiming to understand the historical connections to this industry and its impact on modern Norway.
I didn’t realise how long this article would be, so apologies for the lengthy text. But trust me, as you get reading, you’ll understand why I couldn’t cut it down.
In this article...
Early Origins of Whaling & Sealing
Whales and seals have been part of Norwegian coastal life since ancient times. Norse communities in the Viking Age occasionally harvested small whales that ventured near shore or drove whole pods (e.g. pilot whales) into fjords. Norse sagas mention disputes over stranded whale carcasses, suggesting that a beached whale was a prized windfall, though no large-scale whaling industry existed in medieval Norway. Early Norwegians did practice a form of spear-drift whaling: hunters in open boats would harpoon a whale with a marked spear and later claim the carcass when it washed ashore. This subsistence approach, along with opportunistic scavenging of drift whales, characterised the early relationship between Norwegians and whales.
Seals were another important resource for coastal and Arctic peoples. In the far north, Indigenous groups and later Norwegian settlers hunted seals for meat, blubber, and hides using simple tools.
Hunting in Svalbard
Hunting Arctic animals around Svalbard became highly competitive throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, with Russians, Germans, Norwegians, Danes, and the Dutch all competing for whales, seals, Arctic foxes, and polar bears.
German crews began hunting seals on the drifting pack ice between Greenland and Svalbard. In the 1700s, Norwegians and Danes took over this sealing ground from the Germans. Unlike whaling, sealing required less capital – a small sailing ship and hardy crew could set out each spring to the ice floes to club or shoot seals and return with valuable pelts and oil. These early sealing expeditions were perilous; crews braved treacherous ice and arctic storms, as tragically illustrated by the Svenskehuset Tragedy of 1872–73, when seventeen Norwegian sealers overwintering in Svalbard perished.
Trade Competition
In the 17th century, the rich Arctic seas around Svalbard drew whalers from across Europe. Dutch, English, and Basque whaling fleets established seasonal camps on the archipelago. These whalers targeted the bountiful Greenland right and bowhead whales, rendering their blubber into oil on primitive shore-based tryworks (boiling stations) and collecting baleen “whalebone” for use in corsets and buggy whips. Competition was fierce: nations vied for dominance over the whaling grounds, even coming into naval skirmishes in the icy bays. By the late 1600s, Svalbard’s bays – once teeming with whales – saw drastic declines from over-harvesting. Whaling around Svalbard declined in the 18th century as whale populations there were depleted, and interest from the Dutch and British shifted or waned.
Nevertheless, the legacy of this era remains in place names like Smeerenburg (“Blubber Town”), a Dutch-built whaling station on Svalbard’s Amsterdam Island that once bustled with try-pots and whalers. These early episodes set the stage: Norwegians inherited a tradition of deriving sustenance and wealth from marine mammals, even if other nations initially dominated large-scale operations. By the end of the 18th century, Norway’s direct role in whaling was still limited. Still, a generation of Norwegian seafarers and entrepreneurs had taken note of the profits to be made from the “red gold” of whale and seal oil.
The Birth of Modern Whaling
In the 1800s, Norway rose to prominence by revolutionising whaling technology. The turning point came with Svend Foyn (pictured), a Norwegian sealer-turned-innovator often referred to as the father of modern whaling. Foyn was born in Tønsberg in 1809 and had spent years in the Arctic sealing trade, which gave him the experience to tackle the problem of hunting larger whale species. At that time, traditional methods could only reliably catch slow-moving whales, such as right whales, or rely on chance strandings. Foyn recognised that to hunt the swift, powerful rorquals (such as blue, fin, and sei whales) which frequent Norway’s coast, a faster ship and a deadlier weapon were needed.
After studying others’ experiments (American whalers had trialled a rocket harpoon in the 1860s without commercial success), Foyn devised a practical solution. In 1864, he outfitted a small steam-powered vessel and, after several trials, patented an explosive-tipped harpoon cannon in 1870—a device that would change whaling forever. His harpoon was fired from a mounted cannon; when the barbed head struck a whale, a grenade charge detonated inside, ensuring a swift kill or lethal injury. This innovation, coupled with faster steam catchers, suddenly made it feasible to chase and take down the previously untouchable big whales of the North Atlantic.
Foyn launched Norway’s first modern whaling company in the 1860s out of Finnmark. Early attempts were modest – his inaugural voyage in 1864 yielded only a few whales – but by the 1870s Foyn’s methods proved extraordinarily effective. He established a shore station at Vadsø and negotiated a monopoly license from the Norwegian government (1873–1883) to keep competitors at bay while he refined the business. Foyn’s crews hunted primarily rorquals, towing the floating carcasses back to shore for processing. Nearly every part of the whale was utilised: blubber was rendered into oil (for soap, lamp fuel, and later margarine production), bones and meat scraps were boiled down into guano fertiliser, and baleen found ready markets in industry.
One thing Foyn struggled to do was create a local appetite for whale meat – 19th-century Norwegians were not keen on eating whale, so the flesh was mostly discarded or turned into animal feed. Nonetheless, profits from oil and baleen were rich. Soon, other Norwegians sought to join in the action. Even while Foyn still held his monopoly in the 1870s, unofficial whaling stations popped up (one of the first competing companies was founded in Sandefjord, in southern Norway). When Foyn’s exclusive rights expired, a veritable whaling rush ensued. By the late 1880s, dozens of Norwegian whaling ships were prowling coastal waters, and catches skyrocketed – in just two years (1885–1886), over a thousand fin whales and nearly 150 blue whales were taken off Norway’s coast. This uncontrolled harvest began depleting local whale stocks, and coastal fishing communities began to notice changes.
Conflicts soon arose between traditional fishermen and the new whaling industry. Northern fishermen, in particular, blamed whaling for poor fish catches – they believed the removal of whales (which some fishermen thought helped herd herring toward the coast) was one cause of dwindling fisheries. A notable incident was the Mehamn uprising, in which fishermen fought back against the whalers and destroyed the whaling stations. Whether or not the science behind this claim was sound, the economic rivalry was real. In the 1880s, Norwegian lawmakers, pressured by hundreds of petitioning fishermen, imposed the world’s first whaling restrictions to protect regional interests.
Fun fact – the coat of arms of Sandefjord in Norway represents a whaler.
Sealing in the 1800s
While whaling boomed, sealing continued to be an essential seasonal pursuit for Norwegians, particularly those from northern ports such as Tromsø. Throughout the 1800s, sealing fleets would depart every spring for the ice fields of the West Ice (off Greenland) and the East Ice (in the Barents Sea and White Sea). These sealers, often using sturdy sailing schooners, hunted harp seals and hooded seals for their pelts and oil. By the late 19th century, Tromsø had overtaken Hammerfest as the main base for Norwegian Arctic hunters, and an average of 20–30 Norwegian sealing ships sailed north each year.
The sealing life was brutal and adventurous, immortalised in folk tales and the annals of polar exploration. (In fact, many famed Norwegian Arctic explorers – such as Otto Sverdrup and others – cut their teeth as sealing or whaling captains before embarking on expeditions.) The risks were enormous: ice could crush a ship or trap it for months.
By 1900, both whaling and sealing had evolved from subsistence activities into significant commercial industries in Norway – one driven by technological innovation and industrial profit, the other a more traditional hunt still crucial to the livelihoods of northern communities. Both would soon face new pressures and opportunities as Norway entered the 20th century.
Early Conservation Laws, Expansion, Exploitation & Regulation (1904)
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Norwegian government decided to ban whaling in northern Norway for ten years, which ended in 1914. However, this didn’t stop the commercial whaling business. Instead, it encouraged Norwegian whalers to look abroad.
In 1904, a group of Norwegians led by Captain C.A. Larsen established the first modern whaling station in the Antarctic – at Grytviken on South Georgia – under a British lease. This marked the start of Antarctic whaling, a frontier which Norwegians would dominate for decades. Soon, wholly Norwegian companies followed: between 1905 and 1907, several new firms, backed by investors from Sandefjord and Larvik, began hunting in the Southern Ocean. They were drawn by reports of unimaginably vast whale populations in the Antarctic seas and the potential to reap huge profits in whale oil. By the 1920s and 1930s, Norway was the world’s preeminent whaling nation. Norwegian factory ships and catcher fleets roamed from the South Atlantic to the Pacific. During this golden age of commercial whaling, Norway’s harvests were enormous – by the mid-1930s, Norwegian operations accounted for over half of all whales killed worldwide.
The wealth from whaling helped industrialise and modernise parts of Norway; for instance, the town of Sandefjord flourished as a hub of the whaling industry, home to major companies and a harbour full of towering factory ships. This period also fostered national pride – Norwegian expeditions planted the flag on Antarctic soil, claiming Bouvet Island (1927) and Queen Maud Land (1939), partly to secure whaling rights in those areas. Whaling and polar exploration went hand in hand as Norway asserted itself on the world stage.
Sealing in the early 20th century
Sealing also hit its peak during this time. Norwegian sealers in the early 1900s were harvesting astonishing numbers of seals in the Arctic ice packs. Historical records indicate that around 1900, annual catches in the Greenland Sea (West Ice) were on the order of 120,000 seals, rising to 350,000 seals per year by the 1920s at the height of the industry. Norway and Russia together accounted for the bulk of this take. The economic depression of the 1930s, followed by wartime disruptions, reduced demand for seal products, and seal populations began to decline, prompting some restrictions. In the mid-20th century, seal stocks – especially hooded seals – declined significantly, crashing from an estimated one million animals in the 1950s to approximately 100,000 by the 1980s. This decline was attributed to overhunting and possibly environmental changes, and it foreshadowed the scrutiny the sealing industry would face in the future. By the 1940s and 1950s, sealing was still promoted by the Norwegian government, both for economic output and as a means to maintain settlement and activity in the far north. However, the hunt was increasingly regulated under quota systems to prevent the total collapse of seal herds. Technological change also arrived: older sail-powered seal ships gave way to diesel-powered vessels, such as the robust MS Havsel, and hunters began using rifles more than clubs as their primary weapons, both for efficiency and – eventually – to address animal welfare concerns.
Changes to Attitudes in Whaling
In the latter half of the 20th century, whaling and sealing in Norway came under growing pressure from changing public attitudes and international regulations. By the 1970s, global awareness of environmental issues and animal welfare had surged. Whales, in particular, went from being seen purely as commodities to being appreciated as intelligent, even sentient creatures deserving protection. The image of the whaler shifted in the public eye worldwide – from intrepid seaman to, increasingly, a man killing endangered giants of the sea. Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund led high-profile anti-whaling campaigns. Norwegian whaling, which by the 1970s was much reduced in scope, nonetheless became a target of protest. Activists staged dramatic direct actions, including attempts to obstruct whaling ships at sea. In one notorious incident in the 1980s, the radical group Sea Shepherd sabotaged Norwegian whaling vessels in harbor. This international outcry culminated in 1982 when the International Whaling Commission voted for a global moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect in 1986. Under this IWC moratorium, all commercial whaling was to cease, though exceptions existed for scientific research hunts and indigenous subsistence whaling.
Norway’s response to the whaling moratorium was complex. On the one hand, the Norwegian government agreed to pause commercial whaling in 1986, aligning with the IWC’s decision temporarily. On the other hand, Norway lodged a formal objection to the moratorium – a legal option that allowed it to resume whaling later without technically violating international law. Norwegian scientists argued that particular species, especially the North Atlantic minke whale, were not endangered and could be harvested sustainably. After conducting some years of research whaling (catches taken under the guise of science), Norway officially resumed limited commercial whaling in 1993, becoming the only country in the world to do so in defiance of the IWC ban (Japan and Iceland, by contrast, pursued “scientific” whaling before later following Norway’s lead back into open commercial whaling). Norwegian officials framed this as a matter of principle: a sovereign right to use marine resources in Norwegian waters sustainably.
Whale Quotas & Modern Hunting
Since the 1990s, Norway has set its own quotas for minke whale hunts, using IWC scientific assessments as a guideline but not being bound by IWC zero-catch rules. Typically a few hundred minkes are harvested by Norway each year by a small fleet of coastal whaling boats. The scale is a tiny fraction of mid-century whaling, yet it remains fiercely debated. Animal welfare advocates highlight that modern whale hunts, though improved with better harpoons, can still result in whales suffering if not killed instantly (by some estimates, a significant minority of whales do not die immediately from the first shot). Norwegian whalers and authorities counter that their methods are as humane as any slaughterhouse and that they continually research improvements in killing technology (for instance, developing more effective grenades for the harpoon).
Within Norway, whaling occupies a complicated place in society. In certain coastal districts – notably in the Vestlandet and Nordland regions – small whaling communities see it as a proud tradition and a source of supplementary income. They stress that whaling has been part of Norwegian life “since Viking times,” forming a thread of continuity with ancestors who lived off the sea. Many Norwegians, even outside these communities, view the minke whale hunt as no more controversial than the slaughter of deer or livestock, emphasising that minke populations are healthy and that the meat is a traditional food. The Norwegian government often echoes these cultural and scientific justifications: it portrays Norway’s whaling as a sustainable use of a natural resource and as integral to the heritage of a seafaring nation. At the same time, public interest in eating whale meat has diminished over the decades.
Whale meat was never a staple across all of Norway, and younger generations especially have less of an appetite for it. Demand has declined to the point that, in recent years, Norwegian whalers often struggle to sell all their catch. By the 2020s, only a handful of vessels, as few as eight or ten boats, take part in the annual whale hunt.
Government-set quotas have been relatively high (around 900–1,200 minkes per year in the late 2010s and early 2020s), but actual catches are usually well below these ceilings due to low participation and market limitations. For example, in 2023 Norway allowed up to 1,000 minkes to be caught, but only about 507 were actually taken, with just nine boats active that season. This trend highlights that Norwegian commercial whaling today is a niche, small-scale industry – one sustained partly by government support and a sense of cultural stubbornness, even as economics alone might have led to its demise. Internationally, Norway faces constant criticism for continuing whaling. Anti-whaling NGOs argue that Norway’s hunt is unnecessary (the country is wealthy and food-secure without whale meat) and unethical, given the special status of whales as intelligent, migratory animals.
The Decline of Sealing
Sealing in Norway experienced a more dramatic decline in the late 20th century. What had once been a significant industry involving hundreds of ships and thousands of men virtually collapsed. Two main factors drove this: animal welfare activism and market economics. By the 1960s and 70s, graphic images of white-furred seal pups being clubbed on blood-stained ice floes ignited public horror around the world. Norway’s sealers were often portrayed in the media as villains, much as whalers were. This pressure yielded results.
In 1983, the European Economic Community (precursor to the EU) banned the import of young harp seal pelts, known as the “whitecoat” pelts, thereby removing a significant market for the Canadian and Norwegian seal hunts. The demand for seal fur and oil continued to shrink thereafter. By 2009, the EU instituted a near-total ban on all commercial seal products (with exceptions only for indigenous hunts), a decision Norway and Canada unsuccessfully challenged at the World Trade Organisation. As a consequence, Norwegian sealing voyages became unprofitable. The Norwegian government has provided subsidies for some years to keep a token hunt alive – partly to support coastal communities and maintain traditional skills. But even subsidies could not fully compensate for collapsing demand. By the 1990s and 2000s, the number of active sealing vessels dwindled to only one or two.
By the 2010s, Norway’s seal hunt had essentially reached an endpoint. A BBC report in 2017 chronicled how the MS Havsel, one of Norway’s last sealing ships, undertook what was billed as the “final” commercial sealing expedition to the Greenland ice floes (click here to read the article). The voyage was documented in a film, Sealers – One Last Hunt, described as an unapologetic tribute to an industry that, in its heyday a century earlier, sent over 200 vessels from Norway’s ports each spring. The documentary and local commentators lamented the end of an era, noting that the sealers and their ships had “shaped the economy of coastal Norway” in the north for generations.
In northern towns like Tromsø, older residents still call the significance of the “selfangst” (seal catch)– it was a source of income, adventure, and communal identity. But times have changed. As one of the film’s producers observed, “People today buy meat in plastic packages and don’t want to see how animals are killed… Seal hunting is an old culture and tradition… better to eat seal than farmed chicken,” she argued, highlighting a view that seal meat is a local, natural food resource. Yet, economic reality won out. The Norwegian government eventually withdrew financial support, and without subsidies, sealing simply could not continue at any viable scale. By the late 2010s, virtually no Norwegian ships were engaged in seal hunting for commercial purposes. The practice that remains is minimal: a few coastal seal hunts of much smaller scope (e.g. controlled culls of coastal seals that impact fisheries, or limited hunts around Svalbard) and the continued indigenous sealing by Inuit in Greenland (which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, not Norway).
Whaling in Norway Today
The near disappearance of sealing and the decline of whaling in Norway reflect broader societal shifts. Norwegians today live in an affluent, modern society far removed from the hardscrabble coastal villages of old. However, the legacies of these industries continue to shape culture and policy in subtler ways. For instance, Norway remains a steadfast voice for the principle of sustainable use of marine resources. In international forums (whether it be the IWC or the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission, which Norway helped establish in 1992), Norway consistently argues that scientifically managed whaling and sealing are legitimate. This outlook is rooted in Norway’s history and experience: Norwegians recall that for centuries, the bounty of the sea, from cod to whales and seals, sustained their nation and fueled their economy. Thus, even as few Norwegians today depend on whaling or sealing, there is a lingering national sentiment that outsiders should not dictate how Norway manages its marine wildlife.
Polls often show a majority of Norwegians either support continued whaling or are indifferent, seeing it as a small-scale activity that does not threaten whale populations. Nevertheless, the cultural importance of whaling and sealing is visibly commemorated: Norway has multiple museums dedicated to whaling, such as the Sandefjord Whaling Museum, and exhibitions in Svalbard, and monuments stand in towns like Tromsø and Tønsberg honouring the whalemen and sealers of years past. These signify a respect for the toughness and enterprise of those workers, even as the practices themselves have largely faded.
Eating Whale in Norway
Some Norwegian grocery stores do carry whale meat (generally lean dark-red minke whale steaks), and older generations still prepare traditional dishes like hvalbiff (whale beef). Some whale is available in fish markets in Bergen or Tromsø, but it is typically there for tourists more than for locals. However, consumption is limited, and much of the whale catch now ends up exported to Japan – over a third of Norway’s whale meat is sold to Japan, since most other markets are closed or non-existent. This undermines the argument for feeding Norwegians; it makes the industry appear more like commercial opportunism. In one recent public debate in Lofoten, titled pointedly “Is whaling dead?”, even opponents conceded that outright bans are unlikely; instead, discussions focused on how to better regulate the industry and perhaps find new, ethical business models for coastal communities.
Sealing in Norway Today
Sealing’s contemporary relevance is more symbolic. The commercial industry is, for all intents and purposes, extinct in Norway. However, Norway still allows limited seal hunts in certain contexts. For example, each year a small quota of harbour seals and grey seals is set for Norwegian coastal waters, primarily to prevent those seal populations from increasing and impacting local fisheries (these are managed hunts often conducted by local fishermen under permit).
In the Arctic, Norway also continues to set quotas for harp and hooded seals in the West Ice and East Ice zones, even though in many recent years, zero Norwegian vessels actually take part. It’s a bit of a formality – the infrastructure and manpower for large seal expeditions are gone. One might see it as Norway keeping the regulatory framework alive, perhaps in case markets or needs change in the future. Meanwhile, Indigenous sealing (in Greenland and arctic Canada) still goes on and Norway differentiates itself from that; Norwegian spokespeople at times underline that their objection is to commercial sealing bans, not subsistence hunting by Arctic peoples, which they agree should be respected. Nonetheless, Norway’s alignment with Canada in defending sealing internationally shows a lingering solidarity with the idea of seal hunting as a legitimate activity.
Eating Seal in Norway
I’ve only seen seal on the menu in two places – Tromsø and Longyearbyen. I tried it in Longyearbyen and wasn’t a fan at all. Still, it’s no longer commonly found on menus and is not something you’ll typically come across.
Seal oil is found a lot in fish markets, especially in Bergen. Chinese tourists in particular buy a lot of seal oil when they visit.
Summing up Whaling & Sealing in Norway
In Norwegian culture, the historical significance of sealing and whaling has left lasting traces. Songs, literature, and local museums preserve the memory of the polar heroes who were whalers and sealers. For instance, in many northern fishing villages, one can find the graves of men lost at sea on seal hunts and monuments honouring them. The ethos of those industries – courage, hardship, and self-reliance – has blended into
Today’s Norwegians primarily see whales and seals as part of their natural environment to appreciate – it’s not uncommon to find Norwegians conflicted, proud that their country stands up for its traditions, yet they might have never eaten whale or seal meat and may feel compassion for these animals. This nuanced perspective is part of what makes the issue so persistent.
In summary, the history of whaling and sealing in Norway is a journey from subsistence to industry to cultural flashpoint. What began as age-old coastal practices evolved into substantial industries by the early 20th century, significantly contributing to Norway’s economy, communities, and international presence. Norwegian technological innovations changed global whaling forever, and Norwegian ships once dominated the Antarctic seas in search of leviathans. In the Arctic ice, generations of seal hunters forged a rugged living that became the stuff of legend. Over time, the overuse of resources led to decline, and the evolving human values brought condemnation. By the 1980s, these hunts had become as much about politics and identity as about economics. Entering the 21st century, Norway finds itself holding on to the last vestiges of a controversial past.
The influence of whaling and sealing today is thus less about direct economic impact (which is minimal) and more about shaping Norway’s policies and self-image. They force Norwegians to reckon with questions: How do we balance tradition against modern ethics? How do we honour our history yet adapt to current realities? In grappling with these questions, Norway’s experience with whaling and sealing offers a microcosm of the broader tension between cultural heritage and conservation in the modern world. It demonstrates that the echoes of historical practices can ring loud in present-day debates, and it ensures that the saga of Norway’s whalers and sealers – from the fjords of Tromsø to the pack ice of Greenland to the whaling stations of South Georgia – remains an enduring chapter in the story of Norway.
