The site of Smeerenburg, on Amsterdam Island…

The site of Smeerenburg, on Amsterdam Island in northwest Svalbard, is during the first intensive phase of the Spitsbergen whale fishery first occupied by the Dutch in 1614, when ships from the Amsterdam chamber of the Noordsche Compagnie (Northern Company) establish a temporary whaling station here with tents made of canvas and crude, temporary ovens. (The name Smeerenburg, in the Dutch language, literally means "blubber town").

One of Europe's northernmost outposts, Smeerenburg serves as the center of operations in the north for Danish and Dutch whalers.

A five hundred-ton ship with timber and other materials is in 1619 sent to Spitsbergen.

The tents and temporary ovens are replaced with wooden structures and copper kettles "set in a permanent fashion on a brick foundation, with a brick fireplace beneath and a chimney for the smoke."

Smeerenburg is occupied in its first year only by Amsterdam and the Danes, the former to the east and the latter to the west.