It’s stupid Daylight Savings Time and I’ve been listening to a lot of house music and upbeat stuff to stave off the dark terror of 5pm sunset.
Jessie Ware’s “Soul Control” is EXCELLENT. I recommend it to everyone who needs what my Granny would call an “attitude adjustment” this time of year.
Anyway, some of the lyrics include
baby it’s automatic
you touch it, it feels like magic
She just repeats them over the synths until you’ve completely dissociated in the most wonderful way. I looked up 5 minutes later and she’s put an enchantment on me, like Stevie did Lindsey with “Silver Springs” lol
In keeping with the theme of seasonal blues and my honestly pretty ineffectual ways at managing them, I figured this week we could talk about escapes.
Far flung places.
Anywhere but here type vibes.
So if you’re in, welcome to Don’t Go Outside! We’re going outside though, just so yall know.
THIS WEEK: My Favorite Remote Islands on This, Planet Earth!
There are a few constants in my life. Obsessions is a fair way to describe them but, since we’re all here for the pathologizing, hyperfixations are more accurate.
Not quite compulsions, but very comfortable google blankets on slow days in the cubicle. When you’re a kid with unrestricted access to the internet, some of us used our power for good. Catfishing predator teachers on Yahoo messenger and looking up what far away tiny places imperialism hath brought us. Duh.
Let’s start with my very first remote locale (you never forget)!
THE FAROE ISLANDS
My brain discovered these guys in the most wholesome way ever: staring at a map in my hometown library and marching over to ask the librarian what the words beside those things at the top of the Atlantic were.
It unlocked a pathway (ahem coping mechanism) within me that I didn’t know I had and for the next 30 years, whenever I needed to fill time or erase time altogether, I looked up the Faroes.
I began scouring anything I could:
photos on geocities
Encyclopedia articles about its first settlement
Forums for locals (sorry Arnór, you were talking to 9 yr old me!)
I was down bad. This is not uncommon for me when I first experience the cascading rush of dopamine of learning about something new. If this compulsive researching process sounds strange or lame to you… I hate that?
Anyway, let’s do the CIA Fact sheet for the Faroes so we can move on:
There are 18 islands, and they are an autonomous territory of Denmark. Just like Greenland! That fact is VERY EXTREMELY fun for me and I hope it was for you too, real talk.
I know this tidbit is a played out dig at a lot of rural places, but there are genuinely more sheep than people and that sounds delightful IYAM.
Please dont get me started on how damn cute their houses are!
They have their own national airline & the most direct flight from there is from Copenhagen. While this might sound out of the way, this is very common for many other remote islands (you’ll see later that they all kind of have motherships!(
The ocean cliffs and sweeping vistas man. They just don’t quit. And while I have wanted to see them with my own eyes since I was a kid, they’re not really open for tourism since 2018ish. Isolating even before Covid? She’s a trendsetter!
While lots of my remote faves are Arctic, not all of them are! The majority of them are in the Atlantic though!
Meet TRISTAN DE CUNHA!
First spotted by the Portuguese in the early 1500s, they saw it and kept it moving. Only accessible by a 7 day boat journey from Cape Town, South Africa… it is truly the most remote inhabited island on planet earth.
Atlas Obscura sums it up perfectly by noting that “nobody really wanted to occupy an active volcano in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean; the British just didn’t want to let the French or Americans get their hands on it”. That’s it.
With a population of 275 tucked squarely in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Tristan de Cunha has it’s ups and downs.
Pros: It’s considered a UK Overseas territory along with two nearby (I mean, considering) other remote islands St Helena and Ascension. They basically form a lil South Atlantic cohort and I imagine that framework is helpful. Enjoy infrastructure benefits of the UK while also having friends of similar size and scale to learn from in the South Atlantic. That’s gotta help with logistics, tech stuff and medical emergencies.
Speaking of the remote rainbow coalition, they do have one TV channel! It’s broadcast all the way from another UK overseas territory (sorry Argentina, pls keep me out of this) the Falkland Islands. That’s nice.
I looked that station up and their url is
https://fitv.co.fk/
Again, fun.
(Did You Know: gas rose over one pound a gallon there and they are not happy! GIRL I WISH!)
Another pro: it is beautiful there. Great temperate weather similar to Scotland. Rainy but nothing these Anglo settlers aren’t built for.
And that’s pretty much where it ends?
Here come the negs :/
Tristan da Cunha is a hotspot volcano that last erupted in 1961 and 1962. At that time the population was evacuated and transported to England.
The entire island is made up of upwelling magma called the Tristan Hotspot.
More than 50% of islanders have partial evidence of asthma and twenty-three per cent have a definite diagnosis. Oof.
This is absolutely an Easter egg worth digging into, but check out the wiki for Jonathan Lambert and the Islands of Refreshment sometime. That guy was A MESS. And Poor Tristan de Cunha was caugh tup in his rascal micronation activities! Top notch bored afternoon reading if you’ve got the time.
The island has had many near-misses. The Portuguese, Dutch, French, Scottish and UK have all tried to set up camp here… with varying degrees of absolute failure.
Settlers on the island never really catch a break. Potato famine, viruses, volcano eruptions. It may be remote but it’s not uneventful.
I’ve been following Tristan for probably a decade, so I choose purposefully to end on a positive note. You can spend a well-spent hour seeped in good brain chemicals on the principality’s website.
My recommendation? Read this piece about when they replaced Aunt Ellen’s roof back in 2016. I’m not sure if she’s still with us, but God the whole thing is beautiful. They memorialized it perfectly: “Today is a beautiful, calm,
sunny Autumn day with blue skies,
perfect for re-roofing Ellen Rogers' house,
the oldest person on Tristan.
A group of men made an early start
removing the roofing sheets and old timbers,
some of which have been there since the house was first built.
Aunt Ellen, (Photo left) was born in 1918
and will be celebrating
her 98th birthday in September,
observed from her lounge window,
not bothered by all the noise overhead.”
Now that we’re all tearing up, let’s move on.
This one is gonna be tough, but at least we’re making a quick jaunt over to the South Pacific!
(Audible sigh and nervous laugh) So here’s PITCAIRN ISLAND.
I can IN NO WAY do this saga justice, so here’s what I’m gonna do: there is a lot of trigger warning and true crime shit going on there. If you do happen to be a True Crime Girlie and want to get into it, be my guest. I’m not innocent. I’ve checked out books from the library all about the recent trials. Their history is full of unspeakable things. I mean, what else would you expect from the descendants of the Mutiny on The Bounty? Still. This is a “see for yourself” type situation because I want to give people both an on and off-ramp when it comes to crimes like these.
So here. Here’s the wiki. Grab it before I run away and take this down.
MOVING ON OMG
Our next island, St Helena! Sunshine! Smiles! Polite society again!
Well Napoleon was there, so… the last part is tenuous! But hey! Wacky history!
If you’d like to be caught up, here is a primer from the best of the best.
Basically after Napoleon’s reign he was sentenced to exile on the island of St Elba in the Mediterranean. That was way too easy to escape. He called his boys and they were out like real quick.
So when it came time to contain him again, St Helena was a more appropriate location.
Super super remote island in the South Atlantic, in between South America and Africa. Who was he gonna call? They even moved his mom in on the island. He was STUCK stuck.
That’s all great.
There are two things I care about on St Helena: those damn stairs. And the people. Of course, the people!
Look at these stairs. Please.
Up a hill in the middle of town and I wanna go on them!
Simple enough.
Second thing, my personal journey with St Helena started thanks to the Youtube algorithm. Its good for things besides radicalizing incels, I promise.
It suggested a video from the local broadcast station on the island: SAMS.
Home of the local paper (The Sentinel) and SAMS Radio 1.
I loved watching their stuff and especially following updates from the island. It was nice to see who was winning their local football league. What I enjoyed most of all were the game changers.
Infrastructure updates and behind the scenes peaks into life on the island.
Like when the massive fiber optic cable got plugged in on their beach on a random weekday, connecting the island to the world!
Or when airplanes land there. I’m not kidding. It’s riveting.
I also liked when the cruise ship came by!
I imagine St Helena is like Chapter 1 for logistics folks in school. Excellent case study in sustainability, shipping, supply, demand… all the other words like that.
Anyway, there was a wild governmental tribunal/hearing and suddenly SAMS and its really cool news show Newsbite, was shuttered. I watched a radio episode about it contemperaneously and remember being really bummed for all the folks who worked on it and all the islands residents. I still check in from time to time when someone posts a video about or from the island. But I miss SAMS. I miss August Graham and them.
August and the rest of yall from South Atlantic Media Services, if you’re reading this: I love your work! And miss yall! Thanks for bringing St Helena to the world.
I did discover a St Helena Podcast just today. So, there’s still content to be found for all the stans out there. It just don’t hit the same though.
This seems like a good place to wrap.
Y’all have a good week! Thanks for subscribing to my brain stream!
"They’re not really open for tourism since 2018ish."
Excuse me: https://bit.ly/3tlPQ0G