AHC: Settled Kerguelen Islands

Make the Kerguelen islands permanently settled by civilians (i.e. not only research purposes) with a POD after 1900.

Bonus if you can give us a Kerguelen War, similar to the Falklands war.

More bonus points if you can incise something worth mentioning in/from/by means of the Kerguelen (e.g. a famous football player, a Kerguelen-origin President, or anything else)!
 
Difficult in the extreme. Winds perpetually at 35 kmh, gusting up to 150 to 200. Waves commonly 30 to 50 feet. It would be like living in a hurricane.

A cold hurricane - temperatures ranging between 60 degrees and 40 degrees fahrenheit.

Basically too windy for trees, too ferocious for sheep.

From wikipedia:

Kerguelen's climate is oceanic, cold and extremely windswept. Under the Köppen climate classification, Kerguelen's climate is considered to be an ET tundra climate, in which the warmest month averages below 10 °C, however it is also classified as subpolar oceanic in that the coldest month has an average temperature of above 0 °C. Comparable climates include those of Chilean Patagonia or Iceland, as well as other subantarctic island groups such as the Crozet or Falkland islands.
All climate readings come from the Port-aux-Français base, which has one of the more favourable climates in Kerguelen due to its proximity to the coast and its location in a gulf sheltered from the wind.
The average annual temperature lies at around 4.9 °C with an annual range of around 6 °C. The hottest months of the year include January and February, with average temperatures between 7.8–8.2 °C, and the coldest month of the year is August with an average temperature of 2.1 °C. Absolute annual highs in temperature rarely surpass 20 °C, while temperatures in winter have never been recorded to go below −10 °C at sea level.
Kerguelen receives frequent precipitation, with snow throughout the year as well as rain. Port-aux-Français receives a modest amount of precipitation (708 mm per year) compared to the west coast which receives an estimated three times as much precipitation per year.
The mountains are frequently covered in snow but can thaw very quickly in rain. Over the course of several decades, many permanent glaciers have shown signs of retreat, with some smaller ones having disappeared completely.
The west coast receives almost continuous wind at an average speed of 35 km/h, due to the islands' location in the Roaring Forties. Wind speeds of 150 km/h are common and can even reach 200 km/h.
Waves up to 12–15 m high are common, but there are many sheltered places where ships can dock.
 
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Difficult in the extreme. Winds perpetually at 35 kmh, gusting up to 150 to 200. Waves commonly 30 to 50 feet. It would be like living in a hurricane.

A cold hurricane - temperatures ranging between 60 degrees and 40 degrees fahrenheit.

Basically too windy for trees, too ferocious for sheep.

Granted, it's pretty hostile, but people have lived in places that are even more so. The Faroes are also pretty windy (mean annual wind speed 8.1 m/s or 29.2 km/h at Akraberg, 5.9 m/s or 21.2 km/h at Torshavn) with maximum speeds as high as 43 m/s or 155.5 km/h, and the precipitation and temperature patterns also aren't that different from Kerguelen. (Data here). People have lived on the Faroes for a long time, and they're far from the most hostile northern enviroment where a human population exists.

There are currently flocks of sheep and reindeer on Kerguelen, introduced by sailors during the whaling and sealing period. The sheep have a ferocious infant mortality rate, but they've survived as a feral population on one of the outlying islands and occasionally provide dinner for the scientific station. The reindeer have migrated to the main island and been fairly successful, with a population of about 4000. Rabbits were also introduced by the sailors, and (along with feral cats) have been successful to the point of devastating the endemic plants and shorebirds.

There's Kerguelen cabbage, which was known to sailors from the 19th century (they ate it as an antiscorbutic) and could potentially be cultivated. Sealing, whaling and fishing could provide more food and also an economic livelihood.

I wouldn't rule out a permanent settlement on Kerguelen - it would have to be low-density and it wouldn't be very pleasant, but people could survive there.

Hmmm. Let's say that the main whaling and sealing powers got together in the 19th century and worked out a treaty setting limits on the annual kill, similar to what the North Pacific powers did in 1911, to make sure that the stocks weren't hunted out. Maybe that could convert the boom-and-bust cycle of hunting, where sailors would set up temporary bases on sub-antarctic islands until the local whale and seal populations got too thin, into something more steady and permanent. This could, in turn, result in the sailors' towns on Kerguelen - and maybe South Georgia too - growing into small settlements and eventually becoming Falklands-style self-governing dependencies of Britain or Norway.

There are also the penal-colony and refugee options - people who are exiled to Kerguelen, or who are pushed out of more habitable regions and are desperate for a home, might make a go of it. We're talking a population of four or, at most five figures (again, compare the Faroes) but I'd argue it could happen.
 
Or potentially some people get left behind without price of passage after the coal mining operation goes bust. Stranding of that sort has happened.

It's not impossible. But it's on the lower end. At least two or three ventures to colonize the place failed.
 

Archibald

Banned
As for the Falkland -style battle I nearly suggested an invasion by South Africa - before Wikipedia told me the distance was a whopping 3800 km. :(
A shame, I already saw SAAF Buccaneers shooting antiship missiles at a French carrier battle group.
South Africa would be better trying to invade La Reunion (although they would have to jump above Madagascar, or conquest that island first).
 
I found an interesting solution: France somehow, after WWII, turns into a (quasi-)fascist dictatorship, which is hardline anti-communist, and Commies, Jews (if the dictators are Nazi-like), Gypsies, dissenters, and other nuisances are, instead of exterminating them (which is discredited after World War II), sent off to the Kerguelen!
But the dictator is to be imagined more like Alfredo Stroessner or Videla, or Stalin for that sake, than Hitler. Stalin did send thousands after thousands of people to Siberia, and I would say that that is more hostile than the Kerguelen!

They will establish a population, women will be there, the sheep and reindeer are too, and that is done!
 

katchen

Banned
Katchen

I read somewhere that France has discovered oil off the Kergulen Islands. It would have to be a huge field to justify the expense of developing it in those extreme conditions, though. Or the price of oil would need to get higher than it is now.
Settled in the 19th Century? Possibly as a British or maybe even a Danish or Swedish penal colony. The Swedes would bring in reindeer and a few Lapps and the colony would survive. Remember, in the 19th Century, they have Norway.
 
These islands are about the size of mainland Rhode Island, and maybe settlement is possible. If there is a geothermal or other energy source maybe there is a way to have a resourceful settlement of a few thousand. If there is a means of steady agriculture maybe a little bit larger, possibly with a unique settlement built into the mountain?
 
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