fixed, only to be faced with another setback: nobody had any freight he could carry. This turned out to be a stroke of luck as he decided to go on his first whaling experience, hunting bottlenose whales just off the coast of Norway. Larsen was a born whaler and soon filled the Freden with whales and went on filling her until 1885 when he realized that he could not use the Svend Foyn gun with little chaser-steamers like the modern whalers. It was time for a newer ship. Expeditions to Antarctica Larsen led an expedition to Antarctica, in command of the Jason, from 1892 through 1894, discovering the Larsen Ice Shelf, the Foyn Coast in Graham Land, as well as King Oscar Land, and Robertson Island. The Jason was a ship Larsen was familiar with as he had been aboard it during the voyage that carried Fridtjof Nansen to Greenland during his east–west crossing in 1888. Later he captained the ship Antarctic, as part of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901–04. During this mission some of his crew wintered for 10 months at Snow Hill Island, and after his ship was crushed by ice and sank, he and his crew spent the winter of 1903 on Paulet Island, surviving on penguins and seals before being rescued by the Argentine corvette ARA Uruguay. Larsen and South Georgia In 1904, Larsen settled on the British island of South Georgia in the Antarctic, starting a new era of whaling. On Christmas Eve, 1904, he produced the first whale oil of the season in the newly built whaling station of Grytviken. With capital from Argentine, Norwegian and British sources, he founded the first Antarctic whaling corporation, the Compañía Argentina de Pesca (Argentine Fishing Company). Within a few years the Antarctic was producing about 70% of the world's whale oil. Larsen had chosen the whaling station's site during his 1902 visit while in command of the ship Antarctic of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901–03) led by Otto Nordenskjöld. Larsen organized the construction of Grytviken ― a remarkable undertaking accomplished by a team of 60 Norwegians. As with other buildings, a church was pre-built in Norway and erected in Grytviken. This typical Norwegian-style church was consecrated as a Church of Norway church, on Christmas Day, 1913. In 1922, the funeral service for Sir Ernest Shackleton was conducted in the church before his burial in the church