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The ominously named Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands above the Antarctic Peninsula was first discovered by British and American sealers in 1820. It was a popular stop for those involved in the seal fur industry, but soon fell out of grace from mass overhunting. However, due to its natural crescent shape (the entire island is the caldera of an active volcano), Deception Island provided a safe, comfortable harbor for ships and their crews. The island was examined and mapped by various British and American explorers in the following years, but without a harvestable resource, the island soon fell quiet.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending whether or not you’re a seal or a whale), a repeat performance came to the island in the form of whale hunting. Whaling ships came from as far as Norway and Chile to harvest the surrounding seas for whales, but the British government intervened in 1908 and declared Deception Island as part of the Falkland Island Dependencies. The British wasted no time in setting up a significant presence on the island, establishing a postal service, a customs office, and perhaps most importantly, a magistrate designated to collect appropriate license fees that went straight to the Falklands government. A sizable population boom also hit the island in the years to come – a post office was established, as well as a radio station, a hand-operated railway, and even the largest cemetery in Antarctica. This provided a resting place for dozens of men killed in the whaling practice, and also a place for local teenagers to hang out at night and smoke cigarettes. A permanent onshore whale processing station was also constructed on the island by the Norwegian company Hvalfangerselskabet Hektor A/S in 1912. This shore-based operation was the only successful shore-based industry to operate in Antarctica at the time, and as a result, profits spiked. In other notable firsts, a Lockheed Vega aircraft was flown from the island in 1928, the first successful flight of its kind on the continent. Regrettably, no whales were ever allowed to buy a ticket out.

The island was booming, but with the advent of whaling that could be performed entirely at sea with no need to come ashore for blubber stripping, oil processing, or the taking of selfies with an enormous whale carcass, the evils of greed and overfishing soon began to take their toll. Fees went unpaid and quotas went ignored. The price of whale oil plummeted, and the market soon collapsed. In 1931, all factories on the island ceased production, and commercial whaling at Deception Island came to a sudden stop.

The island stood uninhabited for nearly a decade (save for some very relieved whales), but the British returned to use the island as a strategic base and scientific station during WWII. They remained there for more than twenty years, but when the volcanic island had a series of eruptions from 1967-69, it once again became abandoned. Various seasonal scientific research stations and remnants of past settlements still remain as evidence of the island’s past and sporadic present/future, but with the exception of a large chinstrap penguin population, wildly diverse species of flora and faunae, and the occasional run-aground cruise ship full of weirdos interested in vacationing on an abandoned volcanic island, Deception Island remains more often than not eerily and beautifully uninhabited.