Five Islands of The Americas - Part 4 (The End)

It's here! This is the end of the line for my Five Islands blog series. We've come a long way, I'm not sure how far, maybe I'll put all the islands into Google Maps and check the distance, or perhaps I won't.

The series started with humble beginnings with this blog I wrote way back in January of 2022. It has  only taken me two and a half years.

I'll be honest, I have been rather distracted recently, and my blogging suffered a little. Plus, I got bored with islands. I did original plan to write blogs about islands in every ocean, or one about inland islands, or disputed islands, but I think the series has run it's course now. I'm not saying I will never write these blogs, but if I do, it will be a few years in the future.

So anyway, onto the final five islands. Three from the USA and two from Canada. Let's see where the music takes us!.....

There are actually three Hog Islands in California, plus a few more throughout the United States. This particular one is located in Tomales Bay, in the northwest of Marin County, which is itself on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge opposite San Francisco.

Waters to the west of the island are deep enough for small ships to pass, whereas to the eastern side, the sea is wadeable at low tide. This has been the downfall of various captains that have chosen the wrong channel.

The island supposedly gets its name from an incident in 1870 involving a barge that caught fire whilst carrying a load of hogs. The hogs were released onto the island to be rounded up later.

The San Andreas Fault runs past Hog Island and local legend claims that the island was separated from nearby Duck Island during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The island gives its name to the Hog Island Oyster Company that farms nearby and has several outlets in California.

The island has passed through many hands over the years, it was originally sold by the US government in 1885 to a German immigrant. It was passed through family members and sold during bankruptcy hearings, then passed to a local charity that donated it to its current custodians, the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Due to the island being a pupping ground for Harbor Seals, access is restricted and permission must be obtained.

This YouTube video is of a kayak trip to the island.

Apart from the name, this Rock Island has absolutely nothing to do with the popular skiffle song of the 1950's or indeed the Rock Island Railway Line mentioned in the song. That's a completely different island in Illinois. This Rock Island is located in Lake Michigan just to the north of Wisconsin's Door Peninsula.

The island was originally settled by the Chippewa tribes of Native Americans but it was often visited by Europeans on the Grand Traverse trading route.

In 1836, a lighthouse was built, and Europeans began to settle on the island. One of the early settlers, a hunter called James McNeil, was murdered by persons unknown, but afterwards many searched for his supposed hidden treasure of gold coins, but none were ever found!

One incident in the 19th century occurred when a passing evangelist officiated at two weddings at the same time. He managed somehow to marry the two grooms together and the two brides to each other causing uproar with the guests.

In 1910, wealthy inventor Chester Thordason bought most of the island and began construction of many buildings including a water tower, and an elaborate boathouse adorned with Norse runes. The area is known today as the Thordarson Estate Historic District and is situated within the Rock Island State Park. The State of Wisconsin bought the land from Thordason's heirs in 1965.

Rock Island is accessible by ferry from nearby Washington Island, although no vehicles or bicycles are allowed.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a website dedicated to the island.

At the lower end of Florida is a row of islands called "The Keys" or "Florida Keys", I'm sure many of you have heard of them. Long Key is around the mid-point between Miami and Key West on Highway 1 or as its also known the Overseas Highway.

It was originally called Cayo Vibora or Rattlesnake Key by the early Spanish explorers. The name was due to the shape of the island resembling a snake's head than to any inhabitants.

When a railroad ran along the keys, Long Key was a depot, and a fishing camp was established by the railroad company that described the island as having "some of the best fishing in the world". Most of the railway was destroyed during a hurricane on Labor Day in 1935.

The fishing camp was re-established after World War 2 by Mary and Delbert Layton, who bought forty acres of the island. The city on the key still bears their name, Layton.

Long Key State park officially opened in 1969, and visitors can stay on the campgrounds there, although with the proximity to US1 it can be a little noisy.

Long Key is accessed from US Highway 1, which actually runs from the border with Canada in Maine.

This webpage delves into the history of Long Key in much more detail than I can write here.

Mayne Island is located at the southern end of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Georgia in the Gulf Islands. Incidentally, the strait is named after George Vancouver, not the US state or Asian country!

Members of the Tsartlip First Nation originally inhabited the island. Several middens from that era can be found on the island. A midden is basically a village dump that may contain pottery, bones, shells, and other waste products from that period.

The aforementioned George Vancouver visited the island in 1794, leaving a coin and knife that was only found over a hundred years later by settlers.

The island was named by the captain of the HMS Plumper in 1857, to commemorate his Lieutenant, Richard Charles Mayne, who was the son of London's first Metropolitan Police commissioner.

During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, prospectors from the larger Vancouver Island rested on Mayne before crossing the channel to the mainland.

In the earlier part of the twentieth century, the island had a large Japanese-Canadian community that successfully traded with the mainland.  During World War 2, they were interned and most were relocated to Alberta to work in agriculture. Their homes were confiscated by the BC government and were supposed to be held in trust for the families. However, most were sold without permission and very few of the original community returned to the island. There is a Japanese Gardens that is dedicated to the memory of that community.

The island can be reached by ferry from Tsawwassen on the mainland and Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. SeaAir Seaplanes operates a scheduled float plane service from Vancouver.

The island has its own website.

This island is located north of the Arctic Circle in the far north of Canada, east of Victoria Island. It is larger than most of the islands in the whole blog series, being Canada's 15th largest island and ranking at 61 worldwide.

The island had been occupied by Inuit natives long before the arrival of British explorer, James Clark Ross, who named the island after King William IV, the British monarch at the time in 1830. However, thinking it was a peninsula, it was called King William Land. It was four years later when another explorer, George Back, discovered it was an island.

Yet another British explorer, looking for the infamous Northwest Passage in 1846, became trapped with his two ships in the winter sea ice nearby. After abandoning their ships, most of the crew died from exposure and starvation. Some of the crew is still buried on the island. It was thought that the ships were lost forever, however, in 2014, one of the ships was found in relatively good condition. The other ship was discovered just two years later.

Cruise ships now call at the main settlement on the island, Gjoa Haven, founded by Roald Amundsen during his search for the Northwest Passage. There is an airport with flights from Cambridge Bay and Yellowknife.

This YouTube video describes the island and its culture, it's a long video at almost an hour.

The last five islands! That's it, all done. Well at least for now. Maybe at some time in the future, I may revisit the genre, but at the moment I'm done with islands. There is one glaring omission I have noticed however, I didn't make a blog about the islands of Russia, of which no doubt there are many. When we were exploring Europe, and the obvious diversion was into the Motherland, President Putin had just invaded Ukraine, so as my own small mark of defiance, I moved onto Asia. Yah boo and sucks to you Vladimir!

I did start to measure the distance between the islands and got as far as the seventh blog (Ukraine). But I went to work, lost my notes, (OK, in the tradition of age old schoolboy excuses, my dog really did eat my homework!)

So, if anyone wants to measure the complete distance around all the islands in the whole series, be my guest. I started by using the measuring tool on Google Maps, by imagining I had a helicopter that could land or hover in the centre of each island. But you can do it your way.

Well, back in 2021, I started writing a series of blogs called Capital City Origins where I researched each and every capital city to find out how they got their names.

My new blog series starting soon will be called "Second City Origins". Just in case it isn't obvious, I will be exploring each country's second city. However, some second cities are actually the country's first or largest, so I shall be using the largest city that isn't the capital, if that makes sense. (It does to me anyway).

That's it for now my friends, so I will see you soon (figuratively of course!) when we explore the world's runner-up cities!

Bye for now, and don't worry, Eddie wasn't punished and is living his best life of luxury.