Clipperton or bust

mdonley — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:29:07 -0800

1200 kilometers southwest of Acapulco lies the only atoll in the eastern Pacific: one of France's most isolated overseas possessions. First named for an English pirate/buccaneer/privateer, written about here by one John Harris in 1744, the island has changed hands numerous times: claimed by France as part of Tahiti, claimed by the US under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The island remained uninhabited until 1906, when a British and Mexican mission began mining guano (still in demand today, though sources can now be found a little closer to home). The atoll was thought to have been polished off entirely by an earthquake rumored to have sunk the islands outright in August of 1909. Sovereignty over the atoll passed back and forth between France and Mexico again until the Vatican, given the task of arbitrating the dispute, passed the decision to the Emperor of Italy, who on January 28, 1931, decided that Clipperton was French: JSTOR link here. (Full citation if you've got access: Edwin D. Dickinson, "The Clipperton Island Case". The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1933), pp. 130-133). Since then, Clipperton has been the object of FDR's attention, who visited en route to the Galapagos in the hopes of creating a seaplane stop en route to Australia, an amateur radio enthusiast destination, a new destination for commercial diving operations (huge album of photos!), and most recently a scientific research base, chronicled for English speakers in a 2003 National Geographic expedition with Lance Milbrand, and televised for French viewers on the program Expedition: Clipperton, which includes a fantastic, if Francophone, photo album of discoveries made on the island, in its surrounding waters, and in its freshwater lagoon. Google Books possesses a copy of a recent history of the island, which goes into the motivation for FDR's visit to the island in 1938. Here's a shot of some leftover American ammunition. Given the island's massive exclusive economic zone - which covers an area nearly the size of metropolitan France itself - the place will certainly be on the radar from now on. And no post about a isolated, uninhabited tropical island in 2008 would be complete without the Wikipedia article that I found which started this little adventure today, and a link to a relevant Flickr photo set...in this case, a set of amateur radio operators.

hanseugene — Wed, 14 Feb 2001 21:27:24 -0800

Every once in a while I like to throw a big fat monkey wrench into the MetaFilter "post a link and a comment" system and get people to sit down and actually answer questions, instead of lazily following links off into the great blue yonder. And lately I've been hankering for some new & interesting reading material. So tonight, boys and girls: if you could only have one weblog to take with you to the desert island, which one would it be? [Hint: Besides your own log!] Personally, I'd probably go with either Noah Grey's weblog or the Chess Log. What about you?

MetaFilter posts tagged with desertisland

Clipperton or bust