Larsen chose 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. On that occasion, the name Grytviken ('Pot Cove') was given by the Swedish archaeologist and geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson who surveyed part of Thatcher Peninsula and found numerous artefacts and features from sealers' habitation and industry, including a shallop and several try-pots used to boil seal oil. One of those try-pots, having the inscription 'Johnson and Sons, Wapping Dock London' is preserved at the South Georgia Museum in Grytviken. Larsen was also instrumental, with his brother, in introducing Reindeer to South Georgia in 1911 as a resource for hunting for the people employed in the whaling industry.