Suwarrow

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Coordinates: 13°16′9″S 163°6′41″W / 13.26917°S 163.11139°W / -13.26917; -163.11139

Suwarrow
Location of Suwarrow Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
Map of Cook Islands with Suwarrow near the middle

Suwarrow (also called Suvorov, Suvarou, or Suvarov) is a low coral atoll in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is about 1,300 km south of the equator and 930 km NNW of Rarotonga, from which it is administered.

The atoll was inhabited by Polynesians during prehistory.[1] It was uninhabited when discovered by the Russian ship Suvorov, which reportedly followed clouds of birds to the island on September 17, 1814. (The ship was named after Russian general Alexander Suvorov, who appears as "Suwarrow" in Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan.) It has been only intermittently inhabited since. The Island name has also been spelled variously as Souvorow, Souwaroff, and Souworoff. "Suwarrow" is the official spelling adopted by New Zealand.

In April 1890 Robert Louis Stevenson, his wife Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson, and her son Lloyd Osborne were passengers on the trading steamer the “Janet Nicoll", which called at Suwarrow during a trading cruise around the central Pacific.[2] The journal of Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson was published under the title The Cruise of the Janet Nichol.[3] Jack Buckland was also a passenger on “Janet Nicoll", he later returned to Suwarrow to be the island trader.

Suwarrow was described by Fanny Vandegrift as "the most romantic island in the world", but it was not the model for her husband Robert Louis Stevenson's famous book, Treasure Island. It can lay claim to being a real treasure island though. In the mid-19th century (records dispute whether it was 1855 or 1848), a ship from Tahiti was carrying out salvage work when a box containing NZ$15,000 worth of coins was dug up.[4] Some years later, New Zealander Henry Mair found pieces of eight in a turtle nest. Mair became involved in a dispute, the find was covered up, and it has never been rediscovered.[5]

During World War II, Robert Dean Frisbie and several coast watchers lived on the largest islet, Anchorage. Frisbie wrote about his experiences in The Island of Desire. In 1942, a hurricane washed away 16 of the 22 islets in the atoll. The coastwatchers left a hut with water tanks behind, and left wild pigs and chickens on the islet. Later, cats were allowed to run wild on Anchorage Island, to control Polynesian rats which were documented to occur there since the island was discovered by Europeans (Jones 2001) but conceivably were introduced by Polynesian seafarers a longer time ago.

Satellite image of Suwarrow. Anchorage Island is immediately west of the lagoon's entrance.

New Zealander Tom Neale lived alone on Suvorov for a total of 16 years in three periods between 1952 and 1977. He described his experience in the first two of those periods in An Island to Oneself (1966 ISBN 0-918024-76-5). In 1964, while Neale was in Rarotonga, June von Donop, a former accountant from Honolulu, lived alone in his house on Suwarrow for a week, while her crewmates on the schooner Europe stayed on board their vessel. Michael Swift lived alone on Suwarrow in 1965-66, but he was not familiar with survival techniques and had a hard time finding sufficient food.[6]

In 1978, the island was declared a National Park of the Cook Islands due to the plentiful marine and bird wild life it supports.[7] The island and surrounding water is Crown land. A proposal to establish an aquaculture operation to farm Tahitian pearls was successfully opposed by Cook Islands environmental NGO the Taporoporo'anga Ipukarea Society.

At the end of the 20th century, 3% of all Red-tailed Tropicbirds in the world (some 400) bred there, as well as 9% of the global population of the Lesser Frigatebird (about 8500, though only a part of these seem to be present at any one time).(Jones 2001)

A caretaker resides on Anchorage Island. The only way to visit the island is with a private yacht or by chartered expedition from Rarotonga.

Most of the small islets have only herbs and shrubs, with Pemphis acidula and beach heliotrope (Tournefortia argentea) growing in abundance. The larger islands have a dense interior vegetation of Cordia subcordata (tou); indeed, the westernmost island, Motu Tou is named after this woodland, its name literally means "high island".(Jones 2001)

In October 2011, Russian politician Anton Bakov claimed to have purchased the atoll and declared it the capital of a new Russian Empire.[8] The claim was denied by Prime Minister Henry Puna.[9]

Anchorage Island

Notes

  1. ↑ Best, Elsdon (1923). "Intrepid Polynesian Voyagers". Polynesian Voyagers. The Maori as a Deep-sea Navigator, Explorer, and Colonizer. p. 9. 
  2. ↑ “Janet Nicoll" is the correct spelling of trading steamer owned by Henderson and Macfarlane of Auckland, New Zealand, which operated between Sydney, Auckland and into the central Pacific. Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson miss-names the ship as the Janet Nicol in her account of the 1890 voyage,The Cruise of the Janet Nichol.
  3. ↑ The Cruise of the Janet Nichol among the South Sea Islands A Diary by Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson (first published 1914), republished 2004, editor, Roslyn Jolly (U. of Washington Press/U. of New South Wales Press)
  4. ↑ Helm and Percival
  5. ↑ Cowan, James (1936). Suwarrow Gold and other stories of the Great South Sea. 
  6. ↑ Helm and Percival, pp 63, 100, 105
  7. ↑ National Environment Service of Cook Islands
  8. ↑ "Russians claiming Suwarrow". Cook Islands News. 2011-10-01. Retrieved 2011-10-16. 
  9. ↑ "Russian mission foiled by seasickness". Cook Islands News. 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2011-10-16. 

References

  • Frisbie, Robert Dean (1944): The Island of Desire. (full text).
  • Helm, A.H; Percival, W.H (1973): Sisters In The Sun: The Story of Suwarrow and Palmerston Atolls. ISBN 0-7091-3971-3.
  • Jones, Rhys J. (2001): The status of seabird colonies on the Cook Islands atoll of Suwarrow. Bird Conservation International 11(4): 309–318. doi:10.1017/S0959270901000351 (HTML abstract)
  • Neale, Tom (1966): An Island to Oneself. ISBN 0-918024-76-5.
  • Waterworth. J. Y. (1954): Siege of Suwarrow. Walkabout March 1: 34-35.

External links

Northern
Cook Islands
Southern - Nga-pu-Toru
Southern - other
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