Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Tristan da Cunha: The World’s Most Isolated Settlement (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. Located in the South Atlantic Ocean, situated between South America and Africa, lies the most remote human settlement on Earth. It's there that a community of a little over 250 people eke out a living over 1,500 miles from the next closest humans. Getting there is difficult, and living there is probably harder. Learn more about Tristan Dakuna and how such an isolated community manages to survive on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Starting point is 00:00:47 What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. I've talked about remote islands on this podcast before. in particular, St. Helena in the Atlantic and Pitcairn and Easter Islands in the Pacific. All are extremely remote and hard to reach, although St. Elena has gotten much easier to get to since they've built their airport.

Starting point is 00:01:28 Tristan Dacuna, however, takes the prize for the most remote permanent human settlement. The closest humans to Tristan Dekuna live in Cape Town, South Africa, 2,787 kilometers, or 1,732 miles away. To put it into perspective, that distance is longer, then the distance from New York City to Denver. If you go west, the closest point to South America is almost 4,000 kilometers or 2,500 miles away. And if you go north, the closest settlement is also the very remote island of St. Helena, which is 2,400 kilometers or 1,500 miles away. So basically, there is absolutely nothing around Tristan Dakuna.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Tristan da Kuna itself is a small archipelago consisting of four primary islands, Tristan Nakuna, Inaccessible, Gough, and Nightingale Islands. All of the islands other than Tristanakuna are nature preserves and are protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It lies approximately at the same latitude as Cape Town or Buenos Aires. The island of Tristan Nakuna was created by a volcanic hotspot, similar to how Hawaii or the Canary Islands were formed. The island is mostly circular, with tall cliffs surrounding most of the island, which makes most of the island uninhabitable or at least very difficult to access.

Starting point is 00:02:44 The island is approximately 38 square miles or 99 square miles in area, even though the vast majority of it is uninhabited. The island was first discovered in 1506 by the Portuguese explorer Tristan Dakuna, after whom the island is named. Even though he cited the island, he didn't attempt a landing because the seas were too rough, which is a common occurrence that still is a problem today. The first landing on the island may have occurred in 1520 by another Portuguese ship that stopped for fresh water.

Starting point is 00:03:12 There is no evidence that the island had ever been visited or settled by any humans prior to this. The first documented landing occurred in 1643 when a ship of the Dutch East India Company landed. There were a few more Dutch ships that landed over the next several decades, but the island was rarely visited, as it wasn't on any major trade routes. It wasn't until 1767 when a French team did a survey of the island and another French expedition collected botanical samples in 1793. The first idea for the settlement of Tristan Nakuna was floated in 1785, when, after the American Revolution, the British didn't have places to send their convicts anymore. Tristan Nakuna seemed like a pretty good place to dump unwanted criminals, but a subsequent survey of the island showed that it wasn't suitable for habitation. They ended up sending them to

Starting point is 00:03:58 Australia instead. The first person actually settled on the island was an American by the name of Jonathan Lambert of Salem, Massachusetts. He moved there in 1810 and was joined by three other men. He renamed the islands the Islands of Refreshment, which sounds suspiciously like he sold the naming rights to a soft drink company. The men grew limited crops and some pigs on the island, and the island served as a base for American ships during the war of 1812 who were attacking British ships. However, in 1812, three of the four men died, leaving only Thomas Curie, an Italian on the island. In 1816, Britain formally annexed the island, and the reason for this annexation was that Napoleon Bonaparte had been exiled to St. Helena.

Starting point is 00:04:39 The British were paranoid about the French attempting a rescue of Napoleon and took over the island just so the French couldn't use it as a base of operations. It had the added bonus of denying the island to the Americans who had previously used it against the British. The British established a very small military garrison on the island and were slowly joined by a group of civilians. The island served as a place for sailing ships to stop for food and water as they went around Africa, although it really wasn't along any obvious routes for going around Africa.

Starting point is 00:05:08 In 1867, the first royal visit took place when the second son of Queen Victoria, Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh, landed on the island. The locals named the only settlement on the island, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas in his honor, and it's still the name of the settlement today. When the Suez Canal opened in 1869, Tristan Nakuna was even further isolated, as ships were now not even coming close to the island anymore. Life on the island was extremely difficult. In 1855, one of the greatest disasters in the history of the settlement took the place. A ship passed by and 15 men rode out to try and trade with it, as hardly any ships pass by anymore. All 15 men were lost at sea and presumed dead. In 1906, an extremely harsh

Starting point is 00:05:51 winter threatened famine on the island. The British government offered to evacuate the islanders, but the inhabitants declined. From 1909 to 1918, an entire decade, not a single ship stopped at the island. The first ship to arrive was the HMS Yarmouth, which notified the islanders about World War I, which they had absolutely no idea had taken place. Through the 20s and 30s, more ships visited the island, not necessarily every year, but at least once every other year. There were more scientific expeditions that took place, and an article was written for National Geographic about the island. By the end of the 1930s, the island had a population of about 175 people. The Second World War saw renewed interest in the island. The Royal Navy set up a radio listening station to monitor

Starting point is 00:06:35 U-boats and merchant shipping. The naval presence on the island resulted in a school, a hospital, and other buildings being constructed. But after the war, the island went back to being forgotten. In 1954, the science fiction author Robert Heinland visited while sailing from Brazil to South Africa. He wrote about visiting Tristan Nakuna in his book, Tramp Royale, and he said he found it very difficult to talk to the locals. They spoke the same language, but the locals on the island were so culturally isolated, it was difficult to have a conversation. Prince Philip visited in 1957 when he was on a world tour with the Royal Yacht, the HMS Britannia. Perhaps the biggest event on the island since it was inhabited took place in 1961 when the volcano in the center of the island erupted.

Starting point is 00:07:18 The entire population of the island, which was 264 people at the time, had to flee in fishing boats to nearby uninhabited Nightingale Island. A nearby passenger ship came to evacuate the islanders the next day and took them to Cape Town. But most of the population returned in 1963. The population of Tristan Nakuna is about the same today as it was in 1961. Life on the island is still extremely difficult. For the most part, the entire economy is a subsistence economy. Sheep and potatoes are the primary foodstuffs that are grown on the island, along with catching lobster and fish. There's a small fishing industry and canning factory, which is the only source of jobs on the island. There's no tourism industry to speak of given how remote and hard it is to get to.

Starting point is 00:08:01 There are no hotels or restaurants on the island either. Legally, the island is administered as part of the territory of St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan Nakuna. The island does not have an airstrip, and it's unlikely to ever have one. St. Helena only recently got one for $100 million, and they have a population of 4,000 people. The cost to build one for less than 300 people would be very prohibitive. There is a single policeman on the island, yet no one has ever been arrested for a crime in its entire history. Given how isolated the people on the island have been for over 200 years, they have developed their own English accent. The island isn't as remote as it's been in the past, although it's still extremely remote. The island does have satellite TV now and can get shortwave

Starting point is 00:08:45 radio. And likewise, there are 10 regularly scheduled ships which arrive in the island each year. These ships carry mail, supplies, and are really the only way that you are the only way. that anybody can get on or off the island. There are also a small number of expedition ships which carry passengers which might stop at the island. These ships are usually repositioning cruises for ships that go from Antarctica to the Arctic. The island doesn't have a harbor or a dock, so all ships have to use small boats to move people and supplies from ship to shore. Believe it or not, people on Tristan can order from Amazon.com. However, whatever the order has to be shipped from the UK to Cape Town before being put on a ship and the entire process takes about

Starting point is 00:09:24 four months. There is a single road on the island that connects the main settlement with the potato patches. The only vehicles on the island basically travel back and forth between these sites, which are about two miles or three kilometers apart. If you are an extremely intrepid traveler, it is possible to visit Tristan Nakuna. However, you have to arrange your trip while in advance, as well as book lodging in a guesthouse on the island. You have to first get to Cape Town to board a ship, and sailing there takes six days. And the entire round trip to and from Cape Town, to and from Cape Town will take you about three weeks. The other alternative is to be on a repositioning cruise,

Starting point is 00:09:58 which might only stop at the island for a single day. And I'm very familiar with this because even though I have not been to Tristan, I have been planning a possible trip for years. It's very high in the list of places I'd like to visit one day. The future of Tristan to Kuna looks very similar to its past. It's always going to be a challenging place to visit. With no economic prospect of an airport ever being built, it's always going to be a remote isolated outpost.

Starting point is 00:10:24 The one thing which might change Tristan would be high-speed broadband satellite internet. That would give the island easy communication with the rest of the world and possibly open the door to telecommuting jobs which are currently not available. This would also allow for telemedicine, remote education, and a host of other things that all of us take for granted. Tristan Nakuna and the 250 people that live there are unlike anything else on Earth. The only humans that are more difficult to reach are certain bases in Antarctica and the astronauts on the International Space Station. And it's the remoteness that makes Tristan Takuna one of the most special places in the world. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

Starting point is 00:11:08 The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Tristan da Cunha: The World’s Most Isolated Settlement (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.