Bellsund was first seen by
William Barents in 1596. He simply referred to it as
Inwyck (inlet). In 1610
Jonas Poole explored Bellsund, giving the fjord the name it retains to this day. He named it after a nearby bell-shaped mountain. In 1612 the Dutchman
Willem Cornelisz. van Muyden was the first to attempt to catch whales here, but he wasn't very successful as he didn't have any Basque whalemen among his crew. In 1613,
Basque,
Dutch, and
French whaling vessels resorted to Bellsund, but were either ordered away by armed
English vessels or forced to pay a fine of some sort. In 1614 the Dutch agreed to give Bellsund to the English, but only for one season. In 1615 the Dutch built the first semi-permanent whaling station in Spitsbergen at the mouth of Schoonhoven (
Recherche Fjord), on the south side of Bellsund. It was appropriated by the English the following year. Hull continued to send whaling vessels to occupy this station for the next 25 years, while the English as a whole probably resorted to Bellsund at least until the late 1650s. ==References==