Gold Harbour

This article is about the bay on the island of South Georgia, which is east of the southern tip of South America. For the former mining town in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada, see Gold Harbour, British Columbia.

Penguins at Gold Harbour in December

Gold Harbour and Bertrab Glacier

Gold Harbour (54°37′S 35°56′W / 54.617°S 35.933°W / -54.617; -35.933Coordinates: 54°37′S 35°56′W / 54.617°S 35.933°W / -54.617; -35.933) is a small bay 5 miles (8 km) south-southwest of Cape Charlotte, with Bertrab Glacier at its head, along the east end of South Georgia. During the early 1900s, the feature was variously called "Anna's Bay", "Gold-Hafen" or "Sandwich Bay"; the latter name has also been used for Iris Bay. The approved name appears to have taken root through common usage by sealers and whalers and is now well established.^[1]

Gold Harbour is so called because the sun's rays make the cliffs yellow with their light in the morning and evening. There is no particular historical or geological reason to give Gold Harbour its mineral name, which was in common use among the early sealers. Perhaps they were inspired by the sunsets.

Wildlife

The area is a breeding ground for penguins include king penguins and gentoo penguins, and elephant seals also breed here, especially at the west end of the beach, where a glacial stream flows. Sooty albatrosses also breed here.

References

↑ "Gold Harbor". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 2012-04-28.

Child, Jack. Antarctica and South American Geopolitics: Frozen Lebensraum. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, 13-14, 27-28.
Lonely Planet, Antarctica: a Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit, Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996, pp. 275–281.
U.S. National Science Foundation, Geographic Names of the Antarctic, Fred G. Alberts, ed. Washington: NSF, 1980.

External links

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

Capital: King Edward Point (Grytviken)

General	Coat of arms Commissioner Flag Foreign relations History Languages List of South Georgians Operation "Paraquet" South Georgia Museum .gs Sovereignty Invasion of South Georgia

Settlements / Whaling stations	Grytviken Godthul Husvik Leith Harbour Ocean Harbour Prince Olav Harbour Rosita Harbour Stromness Corbeta Uruguay base

South Georgia islands	Annenkov Island Bird Island Black Rock Black Rocks Clerke Rocks Cooper Island Grass Island Grassholm Kupriyanov Islands Pickersgill Islands Prion Island Saddle Island Shag Rocks South Georgia Trinity Island Welcome Islands Willis Islands

South Sandwich islands	Bellingshausen Bristol Candlemas Cook Leskov Montagu Saunders Thule Vindication Visokoi Zavodovski Traversay Islands

Landmarks	Allardyce Range Fortuna Glacier Gold Harbour Larsen Harbour Mount Baume Mount Belinda Mount Cunningham Mount Paget Mount Roots Peggotty Bluff Salisbury Plain Salvesen Range Southern Thule Thatcher Peninsula Grace Glacier Lucas Glacier Bay of Isles Point Abrahamsen Sheep Point Stromness Bay Cumberland Bay Possession Bay Sheer Point Busen Point

This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document "Gold Harbor" (content from the Geographic Names Information System).