Colonisation of the Kerguelen Islands?

[Arkenfolm]

These islands in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean have always fascinated me for some reason. So how might they be colonised, and what might said colony look like?

The best way would be to get the place discovered as early as possible, which shouldn't be too hard--just get a ship en route to the East Indies blown off course. Way off course.

The islands are known for their harsh and desolate climate, but it isn't too much worse than places like Iceland, the Faroes, the Falklands, or the Aleutians. You could raise sheep, plenty of seals/whales in the water, good fishing, but could it be anything more? There's the Kerguelen cabbage, good for fighting scurvy, that could be harvested and sold to passerby (or even used as a health food in the 20th/21st century!), and the cochayuyo kelp, which is also extremely healthy for you and is used for food in Chile. There's also coal and oil reserves, but these seem to be unprofitable.

Now the real question--how to you lure anyone to such a remote part of the world to begin with, just to herd sheep and fish? And most importantly, how do you keep them there long-term, like the Falklands? And might any country besides France take interest in the place? And finally, what might the maximum population of the Kerguelen Islands be?

 

[The_Last_Plantagenet]

from what i know, the islands sit upon the antarctic shipping lanes and thus immensly tactically important.
also simply place a garrison of a few thousand on the rock and allow them to bring their families wives and children, creating a natural population.
the children will grow up on the rock and thus multiply

 

[thekingsguard]

The big issue may be the country that claimed them is France - a country that has far better places for people to settle. Why go to Kerguelen when you can go to Bora Bora after all?

Instead, give them to some other country who makes a go at it - Denmark or Norway maybe, given thier expirience with the Faroes and the like

 

[trurle]

I do not think agriculture will work on Kerguelen. For rye (most cold-adapted staple) the recommended GDD (growth degree-days) are 260-350 (with base 5.5 degrees), while Kerguelen have 266 GDD average. Plus the weather is pretty cloudy, so i think crop failures of even rye or oats will be very common.
Cheep grazing may be more stable, but i am not sure how much population Kerguelen can support by grazing. I estimate sustainable density would be just 9 sheeps/km2 (pasture area only, extrapolated from my herding experience in northern Russia), and you need at least 50 sheep per man to survive. So absolute population cap is 7125km2*9/50 = 1283 men. Given the Kerguelen is mostly rocks with few grasslands, 200 men sustainable population would be a very good feat.

 

[Arkenfolm]

from what i know, the islands sit upon the antarctic shipping lanes and thus immensly tactically important.
also simply place a garrison of a few thousand on the rock and allow them to bring their families wives and children, creating a natural population.
the children will grow up on the rock and thus multiply

Antarctic shipping lanes (the Clipper Route, are you thinking of?) went a bit north of there, but from what I've read, it could go as south as a captain dared. Now, if anything went wrong (not hard to imagine with the sailing conditions), and the Kerguelen Islands offered an outpost, that could route some traffic. But the big issue is the Clipper Route wasn't often used until Australia and New Zealand were colonised. So now I'm imagining any colonisation of Kerguelen would need a Dutch (or someone else?) outpost in OTL Western Australia (a somewhat logical idea) to work out. The two seem like they could support each other. That's especially interesting since if you're taking on provisions often enough at Kerguelen, you might find out your crew comes down with scurvy less because of the Kerguelen cabbage.

But then you have the issue of who will garrison this place, and garrison it against who? Bringing up France again, there was a thought in France to colonise Western Australia in the early 19th century--I guess that might lead France to put people there to garrison it against Britain and others? It also is always a good place to exile prisoners and other undesirables, so supporting a prison is always a possible economic activity.

I do not think agriculture will work on Kerguelen. For rye (most cold-adapted staple) the recommended GDD (growth degree-days) are 260-350 (with base 5.5 degrees), while Kerguelen have 266 GDD average. Plus the weather is pretty cloudy, so i think crop failures of even rye or oats will be very common.
Cheep grazing may be more stable, but i am not sure how much population Kerguelen can support by grazing. I estimate sustainable density would be just 9 sheeps/km2 (pasture area only, extrapolated from my herding experience in northern Russia), and you need at least 50 sheep per man to survive. So absolute population cap is 7125km2*9/50 = 1283 men. Given the Kerguelen is mostly rocks with few grasslands, 200 men sustainable population would be a very good feat.

Are you just including sheep (I'd assume meat + milk)? Because the fishing grounds are rich, you can kill seals/whales, and there's also the species of kelp I mentioned and the Kerguelen cabbage. It's very marginal (you probably wouldn't want to do it unless you were marooned/shipwrecked/out of other food), but it seems sustainable to a certain degree. There's also other introduced animals (rabbit, cats, and reindeer seem to thrive) to consider too.

I guess rye farming in theory might work, but seeing what you wrote, I don't know if these hypothetical colonists would even bother planting rye after the first season unless they got lucky and got a good harvest out of it (unless they were hungry enough to keep trying a real possibility). Plus I'm not sure of the soil quality of Kerguelen.

 

[trurle]

Are you just including sheep (I'd assume meat + milk)? Because the fishing grounds are rich, you can kill seals/whales, and there's also the species of kelp I mentioned and the Kerguelen cabbage. It's very marginal (you probably wouldn't want to do it unless you were marooned/shipwrecked/out of other food), but it seems sustainable to a certain degree. There's also other introduced animals (rabbit, cats, and reindeer seem to thrive) to consider too.

I guess rye farming in theory might work, but seeing what you wrote, I don't know if these hypothetical colonists would even bother planting rye after the first season unless they got lucky and got a good harvest out of it (unless they were hungry enough to keep trying a real possibility). Plus I'm not sure of the soil quality of Kerguelen.

Well, marine diet may help a bit with calories. But it requires imported materials too - wood, sails and rope, if you do not want inuit-style with boats made of hides on frame of bones. Seals alone is very limited resource.

As about soil quality on Kerguelen, would be generally shitty (highly acidic thanks to poor mixing at low temperatures), but better at spots where soil is underlaid by not yet eroded tuff from recent (1 million years ago) volcanic eruptions.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Which is why I doubt it would be totally self-sufficient, but instead a stopover station mainly for ships on the Clipper Route (the further south is quickest) as well as whalers and sealers. For the Clipper Route to be well-traveled, early European activity in Australia (or New Zealand) is needed. Most people would probably be transient in earlier times, arriving or leaving depending on the season and economic activity, but there would be a consistent nucleus of a settlement to supply them/assist them. It wouldn't be quite like dumping a bunch of people on the island with nothing to sustain them but whatever they could find. They also have coal to sell to passing ships plus to heat themselves, although I don't know how easy it was to get the coal on Kerguelen out of the ground. Possibly a job for convicts.

The soil note suddenly interests me--I regrettably don't know much about soil science, so would this Wikipedia map of the geography of Kerguelen be of any use as to where a hypothetical colony might even find farming possible?

Not to mention, how do isolated parts of the Faroes, Iceland, as well as the Falklands do it if Kerguelen can't?

 

[telynk]

I know a lot of the islands off of the Antarctic Peninsula (e.g. South Georgia) were settled as whaling stations. I'm pretty sure their climates are as bad as Kerguelen's or worse. Is the whaling around Kerguelen as good as that in the Drake Passage?

 

[Driftless]

Apparently there's very little for trees - which poses a challenge for a fuel source for a larger population. How do you keep everyone warm in cool/cold time?

Introduced Reindeer & Sheep have done well, and rabbits have thrived to the point where they have severely damaged the local envirionment. Introduced Trout also have succeeded - in the current environment.

For culinary and nutritional variety, you might need an early introduction of greenhouses, or other temperature protective methods to stretch the food package.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I know a lot of the islands off of the Antarctic Peninsula (e.g. South Georgia) were settled as whaling stations. I'm pretty sure their climates are as bad as Kerguelen's or worse. Is the whaling around Kerguelen as good as that in the Drake Passage?

I'm not positive, but it makes for a good whaling base to exploit the whale populations of the Southern Ocean. Plus seals. Kerguelen's climate is similar, but the temperatures are slightly warmer year round.

Apparently there's very little for trees - which poses a challenge for a fuel source for a larger population. How do you keep everyone warm in cool/cold time?

Introduced Reindeer & Sheep have done well, and rabbits have thrived to the point where they have severely damaged the local envirionment. Introduced Trout also have succeeded - in the current environment.

For culinary and nutritional variety, you might need an early introduction of greenhouses, or other temperature protective methods to stretch the food package.

There is coal on Kerguelen, which was even mined at one point (unprofitably)--send prisoners there in the world's worst penal colony? At worst you could do it the Inuit way and burn fat. Trees might grow on Kerguelen if you imported them (I think), but that's probably not an immediate thought.

Can potatoes grow on Kerguelen by any chance, or is it too cold?

 

[moxn]

Why not have the islands settled by either mutineers or a shipwrecked crew, similar to Pitcairn?

 

[Arkenfolm]

Why not have the islands settled by either mutineers or a shipwrecked crew, similar to Pitcairn?

People got shipwrecked on those islands all the time, and none stayed. Mutineers is interesting, but they'd have to catch onto the fact that they better eat their Kerguelen cabbage or else they will die of scurvy. But the lack of building material (aside from their own ship) and the general sparseness of the island would probably make most of them want to leave (the survivors).

So I think a planned venture, maybe based on castaway tales, would be the main way to go. Europe obviously has the surplus population to try, looking at the horrifyingly high loss of life when European colonists tried to settle places like the north of Brazil, Batavia in Indonesia, etc. So it seems like an early discovery could help--it can't wait until the mid-late 18th century as in OTL.

 

[Jared]

The problems with the Kerguelens are twofold:
(i) they are far more marginal than Iceland or the Faroes; and
(ii) they are at the arse-end of nowhere.

Being so marginal in agriculture is very bad. Rye and barley maybe could grow there, but it's very close to the limit of the growing season. One unseasonal frost or storm, and things are gone. And that's assuming that the soil is any good, which is far from clear.

Fishing and so forth - yes, it would help. But see, again, the margin for survival. No really useful timber on hand, so if you lose one or two boats, there's no convenient way to replace them. Or iron tools. Or pretty much anything that's lose, treally.

Yes, if everything goes right, it's possible for a small group of people to survive on the Kerguelens. But there's no real margin for survival. One poor summer, one bad winter, even one bad storm could push them into extinction.

The problems are compounded by being so far away from anywhere. Yes, Iceland and the Faroes are not all that appealing, but they are also connected to maritime trade networks which means that they can trade for what they need. Yes, the Kerguelens have a lot of fish, but who can they reasonably sell them to in exchange for other goods? Even then, it's worth noting that the first two settlements of the Faroes failed.

A better comparison than Iceland or the Faroes would be the Auckland Islands. Not too far south of New Zealand, with a notably warmer climate than the Kerguelens. Both Māori and Europeans tried to settle them at various points, and even survived for a few years. But they gave up, because the soil wasn't great, the weather was horrible, and really, what was the point?

Short version: humans could theoretically survive on the Kerguelens, but their chances of survival are low, and their chances of deciding to pack up shop and move somewhere more attractive are very high.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Yes, fish, but also seals, whales, and Kerguelen cabbage, and probably eventually sheep. I have it in my mind that because Kerguelen cabbage would be so consumed on the islands (easiest food source) that the islands could gain a reputation as a place where scurvy would go away/be less awful if you landed there. Bull kelp is also a potential thing to sell, because I know the Chileans seem to like it so other European descended peoples might find a taste for it too. But of course, sealing and whaling and supporting those industries is pretty key.

Soil I'm still not clear on. But the island is volcanic with recent volcanism, after all.

They could trade that for timber and iron tools. Timber from Western Australia or Indonesia, iron tools likewise from there or the colonial motherland. And going so far south on the Clipper Route speeds up transit (Great Circles) to either Australia or Indonesia. There's your trade network, it just needs to be established (you won't put an outpost on Kerguelen before you put one in Western Australia, for instance). The colony is very marginal, yes, but seems like it could be self-sufficient if cut off from the motherland/trade networks for a year or so even if they most certainly wouldn't want to be. The Falklands survived, after all. Norse Greenland worked out for long enough, even into the Little Ice Age.

 

[DG Valdron]

No trees. No trees at all. The native flora was masses of vegetal matts in many places. Winds are constant, so constant and so fierce that Kerguelen insects evolved flightlessness. Think about that common winds run between 100 and 150 kmh. Nasty.

 

[Arkenfolm]

No trees. No trees at all. The native flora was masses of vegetal matts in many places. Winds are constant, so constant and so fierce that Kerguelen insects evolved flightlessness. Think about that common winds run between 100 and 150 kmh. Nasty.

You have peat bogs and coal to work with for heating, and a difficult but very workable and efficient traderoute for any wood you might need for fishing.

Not that it's a very nice place, though.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Any other comments, thoughts, etc.?

 

[Albidoom]

Delaying the construction of the Suez Channel by a few decades might help (although sooner or later a channel will be built there), more ship traffic going around Africa means a little more incentive to build a settlement there.

 

[trurle]

Which is why I doubt it would be totally self-sufficient, but instead a stopover station mainly for ships on the Clipper Route (the further south is quickest) as well as whalers and sealers. For the Clipper Route to be well-traveled, early European activity in Australia (or New Zealand) is needed. Most people would probably be transient in earlier times, arriving or leaving depending on the season and economic activity, but there would be a consistent nucleus of a settlement to supply them/assist them. It wouldn't be quite like dumping a bunch of people on the island with nothing to sustain them but whatever they could find. They also have coal to sell to passing ships plus to heat themselves, although I don't know how easy it was to get the coal on Kerguelen out of the ground. Possibly a job for convicts.

The soil note suddenly interests me--I regrettably don't know much about soil science, so would this Wikipedia map of the geography of Kerguelen be of any use as to where a hypothetical colony might even find farming possible?

Not to mention, how do isolated parts of the Faroes, Iceland, as well as the Falklands do it if Kerguelen can't?

The map is not very encouraging. Besides swampy peninsula (marked "quaternary deposits", which basically mean soil) on the East, most of ground is infertile rock. If you compare Iceland and Kerguelen, the Iceland is colder in average (though southern coast is actually much warmer), and have much more green compared to Kerguelen (even forests historically) - thanks to high frequency of volcanic eruptions sustaining fertile soil despite severe erosion. I think the Kerguelen has an episode of nearly-total glaciation since last eruption million years ago, so nearly all of soil was scraped by glaciers.

Port-aux-Francais location seems to be nearly optimal for the colony, but even at eastern peninsula soil quality varies between "very poor" and "none" as evidenced by satellite photo.

P.S. I mis-calculated climate of Iceland before (therefore edited this post). Iceland growing weather is actually better. Reijavik GDD is 493, while Kerguelen is just 266 (both with base temperature 5.5C). Faroe Islands GDD is 667. It makes a huge difference. Therefore, Kerguelen can sport only bleak tundra and bare rock.

 

[fasquardon]

After the Brits made a success out of the Falkland Islands, the French tried to do the same thing with the Kerguelens, alas, Kerguelen Is. is even drier than the Falklands. In the Falklands, the dryness makes for horrible mortality rates for the lambs, but by using extensive farming techniques, the problem can be brute-forced. On Kerguelen Is., I'd hate to see the lamb mortality rates. I think it might just be possible to make sheep farming pay for itself when wool prices are very high.

As far as rye goes, the problem is the wind and the dryness. As for potatoes raising them might be possible, but there are more fertile potato growing areas that are closer to the shipping routes where farming would actually be profitable. Going to the literal middle of no-where to farm spuds isn't really sensible.

Farming Kergeulen cabbage is likewise... Well... I don't know anyone who would be willing to pay enough for exotic sea cabbages to make domesticating and farming them in Kerguelen worthwhile.

fasquardon