Suwarrow (also called
Suvorov,
Suvarou, or
Suvarov) is a low
coralCorals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone-like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals...
atollAn atoll is an island of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu
OED. Its first recorded use in English was in 1625 as atollon...
in the
Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in this South Pacific Ocean country have a total land area of 240 square kilometres , but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone covers 1.8 million square kilometres...
in the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
. It is about 1,300 km south of the
equatorThe equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis of rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass. In simpler language, it is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth...
and 825 km northwest of
RarotongaRarotonga is the most populous island in a group of islands known as the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 .Cook Islands' Parliament buildings, as well as the international airport, are located on Rarotonga...
, from which it is administered.
The atoll was inhabited by
PolynesiansThe Polynesian peoples is a grouping of various ethnic groups that traditionally spoke Polynesian languages and inhabited Polynesia.-Polynesian peoples:The Polynesian peoples include:*Aniwa*Anuta*Austral*Fijian*Futunan*Hawaiian*Kapingamarangi...
during prehistory. It was uninhabited when discovered by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ship
Suvorov, which reportedly followed clouds of birds to the island on September 17, 1814.
Suwarrow (also called
Suvorov,
Suvarou, or
Suvarov) is a low
coralCorals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone-like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals...
atollAn atoll is an island of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu
OED. Its first recorded use in English was in 1625 as atollon...
in the
Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in this South Pacific Ocean country have a total land area of 240 square kilometres , but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone covers 1.8 million square kilometres...
in the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
. It is about 1,300 km south of the
equatorThe equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis of rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass. In simpler language, it is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth...
and 825 km northwest of
RarotongaRarotonga is the most populous island in a group of islands known as the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 .Cook Islands' Parliament buildings, as well as the international airport, are located on Rarotonga...
, from which it is administered.
The atoll was inhabited by
PolynesiansThe Polynesian peoples is a grouping of various ethnic groups that traditionally spoke Polynesian languages and inhabited Polynesia.-Polynesian peoples:The Polynesian peoples include:*Aniwa*Anuta*Austral*Fijian*Futunan*Hawaiian*Kapingamarangi...
during prehistory. It was uninhabited when discovered by the
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ship
Suvorov, which reportedly followed clouds of birds to the island on September 17, 1814. (The ship was named after
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
generalA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
Alexander SuvorovAlexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince of Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimus of the Russian Empire...
, who appears as "Suwarrow" in
Lord ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, later Noel, 6th Baron Byron, of Rochdale, FRS, and commonly known today as Lord Byron was an English poet and a leading figure in Romanticism...
's epic poem
Don JuanDon Juan or Don Giovanni is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, by Tirso de Molina, is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630...
.) It has been only intermittently inhabited since. The Island name has also been spelled variously as
Souvorow,
Souwaroff, and
Souworoff. "Suwarrow" is the official spelling adopted by
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
.
Suwarrow was described by
Fanny Vandegriftalign="right"|Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne Stevenson was the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson and mother of Isobel and Lloyd Osbourne.-Early life:...
as "the most romantic island in the world", but it was not the model for her husband
Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K...
's famous book,
Treasure IslandTreasure Island is an adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book in 1883, it was originally serialised in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881-82 under the title The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island.Traditionally...
. It can lay claim to being a real treasure island though. In the mid 19th century (records dispute whether it was 1855 or 1848), a ship from Tahiti was carrying out salvage work when a box containing NZ$15,000 worth of coins was dug up. Some years later, New Zealander Henry Mair found pieces of eight in a turtle nest. Mair became involved in a dispute, the find was covered up, and it has never been rediscovered.
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
,
Robert Dean FrisbieRobert Dean Frisbie was an American writer of travel literature about Polynesia.-Life:...
and several coast watchers lived on the largest islet, Anchorage. Frisbie wrote about his experiences in
The Island of Desire. In 1942, a hurricane washed away 16 of the 22 islets in the atoll. The coastwatchers left a hut with water tanks behind, and left wild pigs and chickens on the islet. Later, cats were allowed to run wild on Anchorage Island, to control
Polynesian ratThe Polynesian Rat, or Pacific Rat , known to the Māori as kiore, is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the Brown Rat and Black Rat. The Polynesian Rat originates in Southeast Asia but, like its cousins, has become well travelled - infiltrating Fiji and most Polynesian...
s which were documented to occur there since the island was discovered by Europeans (Jones 2001) but conceivably were introduced by Polynesian seafarers a longer time ago.
New Zealander
Tom NealeTom Neale was a New Zealander who spent much of his life in the Cook Islands and 16 years in three sessions living alone on the island of Suwarrow, which was the basis of his popular autobiography.-Early life:...
lived alone on Suvorov for a total of 16 years in three periods between 1952 and 1977. He described his experience in the first two of those periods in
An Island to Oneself (1966 ISBN 0-918024-76-5). In 1964, while Neale was in Rarotonga, June von Donop, a former accountant from Honolulu, lived alone in his house on Suwarrow for a week, while her crewmates on the schooner
Europe stayed on board their vessel. Michael Swift lived alone on Suwarrow in 1965-66, but he was not familiar with survival techniques and had a hard time finding sufficient food.
In 1978, the island was declared a
National ParkA national park is a reserve of natural or semi-natural land, declared or owned by a national government, set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, and protected from most development...
of the
Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands are a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in this South Pacific Ocean country have a total land area of 240 square kilometres , but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone covers 1.8 million square kilometres...
due to the plentiful marine and bird wild life it supports. The island and surrounding water is
Crown landCrown land is a designated area belonging to the Crown, the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....
. However, there are plans to build an
aquacultureAquaculture is the farming of freshwater and saltwater organisms such as finfish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants. Also known as aquafarming, aquaculture involves cultivating aquatic populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the...
operation. At the end of the 20th century, 3% of all
Red-tailed TropicbirdThe Red-tailed Tropicbird, Phaethon rubricauda, is a seabird that nests across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the rarest of the tropicbirds, yet is still a widespread bird that is not considered threatened. It nests in colonies on oceanic islands....
s in the world (some 400) bred there, as well as 9% of the global population of the
Lesser FrigatebirdThe Lesser Frigatebird, Fregata ariel, is a species of frigatebird.It nests in Australia, among other locations.There is a single record from the Western Palearctic, from Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba....
(about 8500, though only a part of these seem to be present at any one time).(Jones 2001)
A caretaker currently resides on Anchorage Island. The only way to visit the island is with a private yacht or by chartered expedition from Rarotonga.
Most of the small islets have only herbs and shrubs, with
Pemphis acidula and beach heliotrope (
Tournefortia argentea) growing in abundance. The larger islands have a dense interior vegetation of
Cordia subcordata (tou); indeed, the westernmost island,
MotuMotu may refer to:*Motu language, a language of Papua New Guinea*Motu proprio, a type of Papal document*MOTU, also known as "Mark of the Unicorn", a maker of professional audio hardware and software...
Tou is named after this woodland, its name literally means "high island".(Jones 2001)
External links