This small, single-nave white church, also known as the Whalers Church, was prefabricated in Norway, shipped to Grytviken and consecrated in the Norwegian Lutheran denomination on Christmas Day 1913. It is still used on occasion for services and wedding ceremonies. Nearby, explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton is buried in the whalers’ cemetery alongside 63 other men, a number of whom died during a typhoid epidemic in 1912. His granite headstone is engraved with the nine-pointed star he used as a personal symbol. Shackleton died after suffering a heart attack at sea in 1922, and his body was returned to Grytviken at his widow’s request—the place he based himself while planning the rescue of the crew from his ship Endurance.
