Eduard Dallmann

Who was Eduard Dallmann?

Eduard Dallmann was a German whaler, trader and Polar explorer.

Dallmann began his adventures at 15 as a young sailor. In 1866 he became captain of the Hawaiian ship W.C. Talbot, undertaking trading trips in the Bering and Chukchi seas to locations in Alaska and Chukotka. He was the first recorded European to set foot on Wrangel Island. From 1867 to 1870 he commanded the whaleship Count Bismarck on a whaling cruise to the Pacific tropics, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering and Chukchi seas.

In 1872/74, when the whales began to become rare in the Arctic waters, Dallmann was commissioned to explore the Antarctic seas on the sailing steamer Grönland. The operation was moderately successful from the point of view of whaling, however, Dallmann made many important discoveries around Antarctica during this expedition, foremost of which were the Bismarck Strait and the charting of Anvers, Brabant, Liege and Kaiser-Wilhelm Islands. Still on the Grönland, he spent the 1875 whaling season as expert on the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay whaling grounds.