Saint Martin Island/Quarantine Island

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Looking across Port Chalmers and the Otago Harbour to the Otago Peninsula. Saint Martin is visible to the left of the picture.
Looking across Port Chalmers and the Otago Harbour to the Otago Peninsula. Saint Martin is visible to the left of the picture.
Saint Martin Island from above the Portobello Marine Laboratory on Otago Peninsula.
Saint Martin Island from above the Portobello Marine Laboratory on Otago Peninsula.

Saint Martin Island (also known as Quarantine Island) is located in Otago Harbour, close to the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Originally known as Kamautaurua, it has since gone by a variety of names, including Halfway Island and the two names by which it is known today. Some maps call it St Martin's Island, but the current occupiers and the New Zealand Geographic Board discourage the use of apostrophes in that way.

The island served as the quarantine station for Otago in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. Since about 1960 the island has been used by an interdenominational religious community, the Saint Martin Island Community, which adopted the most recent name.

A smaller island, Goat Island, lies close to Saint Martin Island. Both islands lie across the harbour between the town of Port Chalmers and the marine laboratory on Portobello Peninsula, an arm of the Otago Peninsula.

[edit] Cultural references

  • Quarantine Island is alluded to in Katherine Mansfield's 1918 short story, Prelude (at the beginning of chapter III).

[edit] References

  • Herd, J. & Griffiths, G.J. (1980). Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3.