Tristan da Cunha

Discovery

The islands were first recorded as sighted in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha, but rough seas prevented a landing. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha. It was later anglicised from its earliest mention on British Admiralty charts, to Tristan da Cunha Island. Some sources state that the Portuguese made the first landing in 1520, when the Lás Rafael captained by Ruy Vaz Pereira called at Tristan for water.^[8] The first undisputed landing was made on 7 February 1643 by the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship Heemstede, captained by Claes Gerritsz Bierenbroodspot. The Dutch stopped at the island four more times in the next 25 years, and in 1656 created the first rough charts of the archipelago.^[9]

The first full survey of the archipelago was made by crew of the French corvette Heure du Berger in 1767. The first scientific exploration was conducted by French naturalist Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars, who stayed on the island for three days in January 1793, during a French mercantile expedition from Brest, France to Mauritius. Thouars made botanical collections and reported traces of human habitation, including fireplaces and overgrown gardens, probably left by Dutch explorers in the 17th century.^[9]

19th century

The first permanent settler was Jonathan Lambert, from Salem, Massachusetts, United States, who arrived at the islands in December 1810 with two other men, and later a third.^[10] Lambert publicly declared the islands his property and named them the Islands of Refreshment. Three of the four men died in 1812; however, the survivor among the original three permanent settlers, Thomas Currie (or Tommaso Corri) remained as a farmer on the island.

In 1816, the United Kingdom annexed the islands, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa. This is reported to have primarily been a measure to ensure that the French would be unable to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on Saint Helena.^[11] The occupation also prevented the United States from using Tristan da Cunha as a cruiser base, as it had during the War of 1812.^[10]

The islands were occupied by a garrison of British Marines and a civilian population gradually grew. Whalers set up bases on the islands for operations in the Southern Atlantic. However, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, together with the gradual transition from sailing ships to coal-fired steam ships, increased the isolation of the islands. They were no longer needed as a stopping port for lengthy sail voyages, or for shelter for journeys from Europe to East Asia.^[10]

In 1867, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, visited the islands. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, was named in honour of his visit.^[12]

On 15 October 1873, the Royal Navy scientific survey vessel HMS Challenger docked at Tristan to conduct geographic and zoological surveys on Tristan, Inaccessible Island and the Nightingale Islands.^[13] In his log, Captain George Nares recorded a total of 15 families and 86 individuals living on the island.^[14]

20th century

After an especially difficult winter in 1906, and years of hardship since the 1880s, the British government offered to evacuate the island.^[15] Those remaining on Tristan held a meeting and decided to refuse, thus deepening the island's isolation. It was reported that no ships visited from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth finally stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.^[15]

The Shackleton–Rowett Expedition stopped in Tristan for five days in May 1922, collecting geological and botanical samples before returning to Cape Town. Of the few ships that visited in the coming years were the RMS Asturias, a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company passenger liner, in 1927, and the ocean liners RMS Empress of France in 1928, RMS Duchess of Atholl in 1929, and RMS Empress of Australia in 1935.^[15]

In 1936, The Daily Telegraph of London reported the population of the island was 167 people, with 185 cattle and 42 horses.^[15]

From December 1937 to March 1938, a Norwegian party made a dedicated scientific expedition to Tristan da Cunha, and sociologist Peter A. Munch extensively documented island culture — he would later revisit the island in 1964–65.^[16] The island was also visited in 1938 by W. Robert Foran, reporting for the National Geographic Society; his account, Tristan da Cunha, Isles of Contentment, was published in November 1938.^[15]

On 12 January 1938 by letters patent, Britain declared the islands a dependency of Saint Helena, creating the British Crown Colony of Saint Helena and Dependencies, which also included Ascension Island.^[17]

Gough and Inaccessible Islands were declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995.

During the Second World War, Britain used the islands as a secret Royal Navy weather and radio station codenamed HMS Atlantic Isle, to monitor Nazi U-boats (which were required to maintain radio contact) and shipping movements in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen's consort, visited the islands in 1957 as part of a world tour on board the royal yacht HMY Britannia.^[18]

On 10 October 1961, the eruption of Queen Mary's Peak forced the evacuation of the entire population of 264 individuals.^[19][20] Evacuees took to the water in open boats and sailed to uninhabited Nightingale Island, where they were picked up by a Dutch passenger ship that took them via Cape Town to Britain. The islanders arrived in the UK to a big press reception, and were settled in an old Royal Air Force camp near Calshot, Hampshire.^[20] The following year a Royal Society expedition went to the islands to assess the damage, and reported that the settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas had been only marginally affected. Most families returned in 1963.

21st century

On 23 May 2001, the islands were hit by an extratropical cyclone that generated winds up to 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph). A number of structures were severely damaged, and numerous cattle were killed, prompting emergency aid provided by the British government.^[21]

In 2005, the islands were given a United Kingdom post code (TDCU 1ZZ), to make it easier for the residents to order goods online.

Tristan da Cunha in 2012

On 13 February 2008, fire destroyed the fishing factory and the four generators that supplied power to the island. On 14 March 2008, new generators were installed and uninterrupted power was restored. This fire was devastating to the island because fishing is a mainstay of the economy. While a new factory was being planned and built, M/V Kelso came to the island and acted as a factory ship, with island fishermen based on board for stints normally of one week. The new facility was ready in July 2009, for the start of the 2009–10 fishing season.

The St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha Constitution Order 2009 ended the "dependency status" of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.

On 16 March 2011, the freighter MS Oliva ran aground on Nightingale Island, spilling tons of heavy fuel oil into the ocean. The resulting oil slick threatened the island's population of rockhopper penguins.^[22] Nightingale Island has no fresh water, so the penguins were transported to Tristan da Cunha for cleaning.^[23]

A total solar eclipse will pass over the island on 5 December 2048. The island is calculated to be on the centre line of the umbra's path for nearly three and a half minutes of totality.^[24]

Climate

The archipelago has a wet oceanic climate under the Köppen system with mild temperatures, but consistent moderate to heavy rainfall and very limited sunshine, due to the persistent westerly winds. Under the Trewartha classification, Tristan da Cunha is a humid subtropical climate due to the lack of cold weather. The number of rainy days is comparable to the Aleutian Islands at a much higher latitude in the northern hemisphere, while sunshine hours are comparable to Juneau, Alaska, 20° farther from the equator. Frost is unknown below elevations of 500 metres (1,600 ft) and summer temperatures are similarly mild, never reaching 25 °C (77 °F). Sandy Point on the east coast is reputed to be the warmest and driest place on the island, being in the lee of the prevailing winds.

Flora and fauna

Subantarctic fur seals at Gough and Inaccessible Islands.

Many of the flora and fauna have a broad circumpolar distribution in the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans. Thus many of the species that occur in Tristan da Cunha appear as far away as New Zealand. For example, the plant species Nertera depressa was first collected in Tristan da Cunha,^[30] but has since been recorded in occurrence as far distant as New Zealand.^[31]

Tristan is primarily known for its wildlife. The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because there are 13 known species of breeding seabirds on the island and two species of resident land birds.^[32] The seabirds include northern rockhopper penguins, Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses, sooty albatrosses, Atlantic petrels, great-winged petrels, soft-plumaged petrels, broad-billed prions, grey petrels, great shearwaters, sooty shearwaters, Tristan skuas, Antarctic terns and brown noddies. Tristan and Gough Islands are the only known breeding sites in the world for the Atlantic petrel (Pterodroma incerta; IUCN status EN). Inaccessible Island is also the only known breeding ground of the Spectacled Petrel (Procellaria conspicillata; IUCN Vulnerable). The Tristan albatross (IUCN status CR) is known to breed only on Gough and Inaccessible Islands: all nest on Gough except for one or two pairs who nest on Inaccessible Island.

The endemic Tristan thrush or starchy occurs on all of the northern islands and each has its own subspecies, with Tristan birds being slightly smaller and duller than those on Nightingale and Inaccessible. The endemic Inaccessible Island rail, the smallest extant flightless bird in the world, is found only on Inaccessible Island. In 1956, eight Gough moorhens were released at Sandy Point on Tristan, and have subsequently colonised the island.

Various species of whales and dolphins can be seen around Tristan from time to time with increasing sighting rate although recovery of baleen whales, especially the southern right whale, were severely hindered by illegal whaling by the Soviet Union.^[25] The subantarctic fur seal Arctocephalus tropicalis can also be found in the Tristan archipelago, mostly on Gough Island.^[33]

Transport

The remote location of the islands makes transport to the outside world difficult. Lacking an airport, the islands can be reached only by sea. Fishing boats from South Africa service the islands eight or nine times a year. The RMS Saint Helena used to connect the main island to St. Helena and South Africa once each year during its January voyage, but has done so only a few times in the last years, in 2006, in 2011,^[5] and finally in 2018.^[38] The wider territory normally has access to air travel, with Ascension island served by RAF Ascension Island^[39] though flights for civilians were indefinitely suspended in April 2017. The Saint Helena Airport became operational with its first commercial flight on 14 October 2017.^[40][41] There is no direct, regular service to Tristan da Cunha itself from either location. The harbour at Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is called Calshot Harbour, named after the place in Hampshire where the islanders temporarily stayed during the volcanic eruption.^[42]

Communications

Education

Education is fairly rudimentary; children leave school at age 16, and although they can take GCSEs a year later, few do.^[56][57] The school on the island is St. Mary's School, which serves children from ages 4 to 16. It opened in 1975 and has five classrooms, a kitchen, a stage, a computer room, and a craft and science room.^[58]

The Tristan Song Project was a collaboration between St. Mary's School and amateur composers in Britain, led by music teacher Tony Triggs. It began in 2010 and involved St Mary's pupils writing poems and Tony Triggs providing musical settings by himself and his pupils.^[59] A desktop publication entitled Rockhopper Penguins and Other Songs (2010) embraced most of the songs completed that year and funded a consignment of guitars to the school.^[60] In February 2013, the Tristan Post Office issued a set of four Song Project stamps featuring island musical instruments and lyrics from Song Project songs about Tristan's volcano and wildlife. In 2014, the project broadened its scope and continues as the International Song Project.

Health

There are instances of health problems attributed to endogamy, including glaucoma. In addition, there is a very high (42%) incidence of asthma among the population and research by Noe Zamel of the University of Toronto has led to discoveries about the genetic nature of the disease.^[61] Three of the original settlers of the island were asthma sufferers.^[62]

In 2012, Gerard Bulger was the only doctor on the island, providing medical services for the 270 inhabitants. A small hospital, the Camogli Hospital, has ultrasound, X-ray facilities, and a gastroscope. There were no nurses, only care assistants, but Bulger praised the care provided in the community. Bulger reported difficulty keeping pharmacy and consumable stocks in date. Supplies came from South Africa. One of his jobs was to check the water supply.^[63]

Healthcare is funded by the government, undertaken by one resident doctor from South Africa and five nurses. Surgery or facilities for complex childbirth are therefore limited, and emergencies can necessitate communicating with passing fishing vessels so the injured person can be ferried to Cape Town. As of late 2007, IBM and Beacon Equity Partners, co-operating with Medweb, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the island's government on "Project Tristan", has supplied the island's doctor with access to long distance tele-medical help, making it possible to send EKG and X-ray pictures to doctors in other countries for instant consultation. This system has been limited owing to the poor reliability of Internet connections and an absence of qualified technicians on the island to service fibre optic links between the hospital and Internet centre at the administration buildings.

Media

Local television began in 1984 using taped programming on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings.^[64] Live television did not arrive on the island until 2001, with the introduction of the British Forces Broadcasting Service, which now provides BBC1, BBC2, ITV and BFBS Extra, relayed to islanders via local analogue transmitters. BFBS Radio 2 is the locally available radio station.

A comprehensive website www.tristandc.com is provided by the island government and the Tristan da Cunha Association which maintains it from the UK. A weekly local printed newsletter, Village Voice, is produced on the island.

Holidays

According to the island's January 2014 newsletter, the summer season gets under way with Sheep Shearing Day held on a Saturday in mid-December. Almost the entire population gathers on the far end of Patches Plain where the sheep pens are sited. Hand-clippers are used in the shearing and the wool is later carded, spun and hand-knitted into garments, some of which are sold under the name "37 Degrees South Knitwear Range".

There is an annual break from government and factory work which begins before Christmas and lasts for three weeks. Break-Up Day is usually marked with parties at various work "departments". Break-Up includes the Island Store, which means that families must be organised to have a full larder of provisions during the period. In 2013, the Island Store closed a week earlier than usual to conduct a comprehensive inventory, and all purchases had to be made by Friday 13 December as the shop did not open again until a month later.^[65]

The January 2014 New Year Message from Administrator Alex Mitham announced that, in 2013, the Island Council recognised there was no national holiday that specifically celebrates Tristan's heritage and culture, 'So I am pleased to announce that the Council have agreed that a new national holiday called Longboat Day that would be instated in 2015, and the traditional longboats race brought back.' There was no immediate indication of which date would be selected for the new holiday.^[66]

Film

• In Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, a dying man recollecting the things that have apparently meant most to him mentions "Tristan da Cunha".^[68]
• 37°4 S is a short film about two teenagers who live on the island.

Literature

• Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), Chapter 15, has a detailed history and description of the island.
• In Jules Verne's novel In Search of the Castaways, one of the chapters is set on Tristan da Cunha, and a brief history of the island is mentioned. The island is also referred to in Verne's novel The Sphinx of the Ice Fields (1897), which he wrote as an unauthorised sequel to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The 1899 English translation by Mrs. Cashel Hoey of Ice Fields was published under the title An Antarctic Mystery.
• South African poet Roy Campbell wrote "Tristan de Cunha" (1927) Tristan de Cunha, an elegiac poem about the island.
• Tristan da Cunha is the site of a top-secret nuclear disarmament conference in Fletcher Knebel's 1968 political thriller Vanished. The book was adapted as a 1971 two-part NBC made-for-TV movie starring Richard Widmark.
• Hervé Bazin's novel Les Bienheureux de la Désolation (1970) describes the 1961 forced exile of the population to England after the volcano erupted, and their subsequent return.
• In Primo Levi's memoir The Periodic Table (1975), one of the fictional short stories, "Mercurio", is set on Tristan da Cunha, named "Desolation Island".
• In Patrick O'Brian's novel The Mauritius Command (1977), Tristan da Cunha is mentioned by a man fond of birds, Captain Fortescue of the schooner Wasp, who spent an extended period on the island studying the Albatross whilst cast ashore. Also in O'Brian's The Thirteen-Gun Salute (1991), the ship Dianne is nearly wrecked on Inaccessible Island, with the cover of the book depicting the scene.
• Zinnie Harris's play, Further Than the Furthest Thing (2000), is inspired by events on the island, notably the 1961 volcanic eruption and evacuation of the islanders.
• Raoul Schrott's novel, Tristan da Cunha oder die Hälfte der Erde (2003), is almost entirely set on Tristan da Cunha and Gough islands, and chronicles the history of the archipelago.
• Alice Munro's short story Deep-Holes in her 2009 short story collection Too Much Happiness. The female protagonist, a mother, confides to her young son about her fascination with remote islands like Tristan da Cunha and the Faroe Islands. Later, when her son goes missing, she fantasises that he has found his way to one of these islands and is living there.
• In the book Pulse by Jeremy Robinson, Tristan de Cunha is the top secret headquarters of "Beta Incorporated", a shell company of the antagonistic "Manifold Genetics", which is later destroyed by artificially causing an eruption to self-destruct said base, killing most of the Edinburgh of the Seven Seas population.

Non-fiction

Painting by Rose Annie Rogers of Atlantisia rogersi (1927), the world's smallest flightless bird, which is found only on Inaccessible Island

• Frank T. Bullen provides details of visiting the island in the 1870s in his book The Cruise of the Cachalot, first published in 1898.
• Raymond Rallier du Baty describes the people and the island circa 1908 in his book 15,000 Miles in a Ketch (1915).
• In Shackleton's Last Voyage by Captain Frank Wild (1923), several chapters (with photographs) recount events on the island during the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition in May 1922.
• Rose Annie Rogers, part of an American missionary couple, wrote a memoir of her time on Tristan da Cunha, called The Lonely Island (1927).
• Katherine Mary Barrow's book Three Years in Tristan Da Cunha (1910) is a "simple and true description of daily life among a very small community cut off from the rest of the world" based on entries to her diaries and letters written during the period to her sister.
• Martin Holdgate describes a visit to the island by a scientific expedition heading for Gough Island in 1955 in Mountains in the Sea.
• Simon Winchester's Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire (1985, reprinted in 2003), devotes a chapter to the island, which he visited in the mid-1980s. In the foreword to the reprint, the author states that he was banned from Tristan da Cunha because of his writing about the war-time romance of a local woman. He published a longer account of his banishment in Latham's Quarterly.
• In 2005, Rockhopper Copper, the first book about the island written by an Islander, was published. It was written by Conrad Glass, Tristan da Cunha's longtime Police and Conservation officer.^[69]
• Robert A. Heinlein's book Tramp Royale (1992), about a world trip in 1953–54, devoted a chapter to his near visit to Tristan da Cunha. He talked to islanders but could not go ashore owing to the weather.

Videos of the island

• Return to Trista da Cunha, Global Nomad, National Geographic (2012).
• A Day on Tristan da Cunha, Global Nomad, National Geographic (2011).
• Tristan da Cunha: The story of Asthma Island, part 1 and part 2, BBC Four (2008).
• Tristan da Cunha: Life on the island in 1963 (1963).
• Tristan da Cunha: Life of an islander in 1963 (1963).

Coordinates: 37°15′S 12°25′W / 37.250°S 12.417°W / -37.250; -12.417