Willem Cornelisz. van Muyden

Willem Cornelisz. van Muyden (1573, Muiden – 1634, Amsterdam) was an early 17th-century mariner. He is known in the Netherlands as De Eerste Walvisvanger ("The First Whaleman") (1613). Van Muydenbukta and Van Mijenfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen and Kapp Muyen on the west coast of Jan Mayen are named after him.

Van Muyden started his career as a ship's carpenter, but in 1607 he shipped aboard a vessel loaded with grain for Italy. In 1609 he travelled to Norway and Saint-Malo. In 1611 he made his way to the Mediterranean, where his ship was seized by pirates. He arrived in Middelburg in January of the following year.

A company in Amsterdam under Lambert van Tweenhuysen, in the wake of the first whaling expedition to Spitsbergen, sent Van Muyden in the Neptunus to the same locale in 1612. They hired the adsconding bankrupt Alan Sallows as pilot, a man who had spent twenty years "in the Northern Seas" in the service of the Muscovy Company.

On 13 May (NS) the expedition ran into the English off Bjørnøya. The following day there was talk among the English to detain Sallows, but they ultimately decided to let him go. On 5 June the ship sailed into the northern entrance of Forlandsundet, where, the next day, Sallows told the English of the loss of their merchant Kijn, who had fallen off a cliff and broken his neck. The same day the Neptunus sailed to the south. They anchored in a small bay on the north shore of Bellsund later called Van Muyden Harbor (modern Van Muydenbukta). Lacking the expertise of Basque whalemen, they had little success with catching whales, and when the men asked Sallows how to catch walrus and stated that they were prepared to follow his instructions, he provided none. Sallows proved incompetent. He appears to have never been to Spitsbergen before, as the information he provided the Dutch was incorrect; he in fact knew nothing about the country or its fauna. He further angered the men when drunk, daily consuming brandy.

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