Almost everyone knows the story of a man named Robinson Crusoe. This is a fictional story, but the basis is the absolutely real incident that happened with Alexander Selkirk. In fact, history knows many examples when people came to uninhabited islands, this could happen as a result of a shipwreck, some were taken out specially, and someone decided to take such a step consciously.
Islands of the world
Modern researchers claim that there are approximately 500 thousand islands on our planet, but only 2% of them are inhabited. Most of the land islands among the "large" water are located off the coast of Japan, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Philippines, Indonesia and Greece.
The largest island in the world is Greenland. Its area is more than 2 million km 2 . It is located between two oceans: the Atlantic and the Arctic, in the area of the Canadian archipelago. Greenland is part of Denmark and has very broad powers. Only 57.6 thousand people live on the island, mainly Greenland Eskimos (90%), since 80% of the territory is covered with ice.
Alexander Selkirk
There are many legends about life on a desert island, but there are real stories. In 1703, Alexander Selkirk participated in an expedition that set off from the British coast to South America. This man was famous for his very scandalous character, and for 1 year of travel he was tired of the whole team. When Alexander announced his desire to go out on any island, the team breathed a sigh of relief.
It is clear that Selkirk regretted his decision, but no one wanted to listen to him, and he ended up on a desert island, where he lived for 4 years and 4 months. Alexander was lucky, before him, immigrants lived on this piece of land, after which there were goats and even a cat. He also found edible berries, thickets of turnips.
In 1709, a British ship moored at the island, whose crew saved Selkirk. Upon returning to Britain, this case was written for a very long time. It is the story of life on a desert island of this man formed the basis of the book "Robinson Crusoe."
Russian islands
Some Russian citizens also have something to tell about life on the island. The largest pieces of land are in the Arctic Ocean, and the smallest in the Black and Azov Seas.
Most of the Russian islands are very poorly populated, and some can be accessed exclusively by special passes or with an expedition.
Some of the islands in the Russian Federation:
Title | Area, km 2 | a brief description of |
Karaginsky | 1935 | Located in the waters of the Bering Sea. It has a volcanic origin, people do not live here. Winter lasts about 7 months. |
Vaigach | 3400 | It is located beyond the Arctic Circle, where only bears, hares, walruses and deer live. In summer, the air temperature does not rise above +12 ˚. |
Kolguyev | 3495 | Located beyond the Arctic Circle. The climate is characterized by severe fluctuations in atmospheric temperature. 450 people living on this land in two villages can tell about life on the island. |
Wrangel | 7670 | It is located in the region of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas. There are no people here, but there are a lot of animals, from polar bears to birds, which, by the way, have about 40 species on the island. |
Sakhalin | 76600 | Located in the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk, the most populated island in Russia. It is almost always cool here, and the vegetation is represented by 1.5 thousand species. Animals are represented by brown bears, mink, wolverines and other representatives of the fauna. |
Kuril Islands
These are islands with mountainous terrain (56), where there are about 160 volcanoes (40 active). Located in the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk. There are often earthquakes and severe storms. Nevertheless, the climate can be described as mild, with cloudy summers and long winters. In general, either snow or dense fog with rains lies on the islands. On most of the islands people live.
Life in the Kuril Islands is not as simple as it might seem the first time. The most inhabited islands: Iturup and Kunashir. You can get to them only by helicopter or plane and by boat (travel time is about 18-24 hours, departure from the city of Korsakov). However, daily communication is not established, and to get here to the tourist, tickets will have to be purchased several months before the planned date of the trip. Another problem may arise, due to unfavorable weather, motor ships running only 2 times a week may not go at all. In addition, an outsider will have to obtain special permission, because this is a border zone.
According to reviews of life on the island, it is very easy to meet a brown bear on its way or find bottles of Japanese production. On the island there are many remnants of old factories in Japan, a cemetery. On the other hand, practically every resident of the islands has his own vehicle, and these are mainly Japanese jeeps, although there are no gas stations. According to reviews, in principle, there are no problems with fuel, it is imported in barrels.
Due to the high seismic hazard, houses are not built above three floors. But the vacation with the local population is 62 days. And the inhabitants of the southern islands even have a visa-free regime with Japan.
Canaries
Almost every resident of the northern regions dreams of life in the Canary Islands. They are located in the Atlantic Ocean, not far from Western Sahara and Morocco. The total area of all islands is 7,447 km 2 . All of them belong to Spain.
The climate here is tropical, the islands are mostly mountainous. But from August to October is the hurricane season. It may seem that life on an island in the Caribbean is a paradise, but is it really so?
First of all, you need to understand that here almost all year round unbearable heat, high humidity. Secondly, there are a lot of insects on the islands, and most of them bite. Thirdly, on the islands, the change of seasons is practically not noticeable, they are too similar to each other.
This is not to say that everything is fine on islands with infrastructure, well, there are holes on the roads, but very often electricity disappears, the Internet is not only expensive, but also very slow. Do not hope that you can live in a tent and eat fruit from the trees. Anyway, you have to solve issues with personal hygiene, washing clothes, and to grow fruit on a tree, you need to take care of it.
The islands often have a natural phenomenon called Kalima. This is fine sand dust, arriving along with the wind from African Sahara. At such moments, asthmatics are hardest hit.
Uninhabited islands of the planet
Perhaps you should think about life on a desert island? After all, there are still about 490 thousand left on the planet.
If you discard options with islands where there are scarce water supplies, then there is the opportunity to fulfill your dream without traveling outside the European continent.
In the press last year, information appeared that the French government was inviting a family to live on a desert island. The authorities propose to settle on the small island of Kemenes (not far from the coast of Brittany), where the family had previously lived (10 years), but decided to move to the mainland.
This is a piece of sushi with sand, grass and stones. There are many seals, dwarf sheep, seabirds live.
According to some reports, for 1 thousand years people lived on the island, but 25 years ago everyone finally moved to the mainland. Only in 2007 did they find a man who agreed with his family to live and look after the island here. Then David and Suazik dreamed of dreams, but, as they say, they wouldn’t have done that now in any case. The family was engaged in the cultivation of sheep, potatoes and hosted tourists. The main condition of the contract is to earn a living on your own. The family still managed to cope with this, but there were many other problems.
First of all, electricity could only be obtained from solar panels and a windmill. Water had to collect rainwater. Although the family did not completely deny themselves modern gadgets, they even had electric buggies on which they examined the island. But the main reason for leaving was that the children still need to learn.
World-famous stories: Pavel Vavilov
Pavel Vavilov once spoke about survival on the island in real life. He was the stoker of the team of the icebreaker Alexander Sibiryakov. On August 25, 1942, the icebreaker entered the battle with the German cruiser. The battle took place in the area of Domashny Island (Kara Sea). As a result, all team members died, except for Paul. He managed to climb a rescue whaleboat and get to Belukha Island.
However, the stoker did not have to rejoice, only polar bears lived here. He stretched the remaining food supply on the whaleboat as he could. Vavilov settled in the lighthouse, where it was relatively safe. I got water from melt snow. After 34 days of stay on the island, the stoker managed to transmit a distress signal to a sailing ship, which saved him.
Ada Blackjack
Not only men find themselves on uninhabited islands, the Inuit girl named Ada was not lucky either. Her life did not succeed, children and a young husband died, and the youngest son had to be sent to a shelter, there was no money for subsistence. But one day she received an offer to go on an expedition to Wrangel Island. The team went on a trip in 1921, but everything went wrong right away, the food ended quickly, the hunt did not make it possible to eat normally. In January, part of the team decided to go from the wintering place to the mainland. On the island remained Ada and the wounded Knight, who soon died.
The polar explorers who went back were never found, and Ada managed to live 2 years on the island, learn how to hunt. As a result, in 1923 she was rescued. Upon returning home, she took her son from the shelter and moved to Seattle, where she began a new life with the money she earned.
Conscious choice
But not all people by chance have to be on a desert island. Some make informed choices. In the early 80s of the last century, a journalist from the UK decided to conduct a social experiment and continue his life on the island. However, none of his acquaintances wanted to support his desire, and he advertised in a newspaper. After some time, a young girl responded - Lucy Irwin. To simplify the process of moving, they got married.
In 1982, young people went to the island of Tain, located between Australia and New Guinea. It was a desert island, habitable. But upon arriving at Tain, the couple realized that they had absolutely nothing in common, so, in addition to solving everyday problems, I also had to learn to get along together. According to the couple, it was ignorance and misunderstanding of each other that became the main problem of being on the island.
In 1983, a terrible drought occurred on the island, fresh water ran out among people. However, they were lucky, and they were saved by the natives from the island of Badu. Returning to their homeland, the couple divorced, and each of them wrote his own book.
How to survive on a desert island?
Most people crave romance, it seems to them that life on the island is a paradise. But is this really so, especially if, apart from you, nobody was there? It’s one thing when you are going to rest, you don’t need to think about finding food and building housing, everything is ready for rest. It’s a completely different matter when you don’t even have a knife and matches in your hands. And when there comes an understanding that a tragedy has occurred, panic immediately begins, the blue water and snow-white sand are no longer happy.
Water extraction
If it happened that you ended up on a desert island, you should immediately start looking for water. If you can still live a certain time without food, then without water - no way.
You should search, perhaps there are old wells on the island. If there are rocks, it is likely that there is rainwater in the crevices. Look for coconut fruits, they have milk inside. Take a good look around, collect any container that will allow you to draw water.
Shelter
If at least somehow you managed to solve the water problem, start building a shelter. If it is a tropical island, then the main thing is to make a canopy that will save from the sun and rain. Coconut leaves are perfect.
Try to make the bed a little higher than the ground level so that insects are less disturbed.
Do not build a shelter in the jungle, there are more insects and there may be animals. In addition, from the beach you can quickly notice the ship.
Food and bonfire
Almost everyone can eat in the tropics. It can be coconuts, bananas and larvae, mollusks and snails. Build something like a spear and fish, a slope will come up, which often floats in shallow water. The main thing is that the process of obtaining food is not too complicated so as not to spend a lot of calories.
In the tropics, in spite of the heat, it’s quite difficult to make fire, as there is very high humidity, so you have to try. If you managed to light a fire, then do everything so that it does not go out.
The life of people on the islands - both inhabited and uninhabited - is very difficult. After all, this is isolation from the world, the inability to promptly call for help and other problems. Therefore, not every modern resident of the metropolis is able to survive on the island, especially when it comes to the conditions of the Far North.