When a Map Lies

I no longer own a dinner jacket.

First world problem I know, and more deliberate than accidental, but it means that my social life is now restricted to the cheerfully informal 90% of invitations. And it also explains why I was so happy when the dress code for the Non-Existent Islands dinner that I was invited to at Dulwich College back in May, was ‘lounge suits’. Lounge suits we can do.

Of all the dinners that I have ever been to, this one had possibly both the best title and the best binding common interest. It was a gathering of people who, as members of the James Caird Society, were not just obsessed with Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), but with the precise boat that brought him and 5 colleagues from Elephant Island to South Georgia, in what was probably the most extraordinary part of his escape from the Antarctic ice on his 1914-17 expedition. 40 years ago last February, a group of 12 Green Jackets, of whom I was one, had retraced his steps across South Georgia and, whilst we knew nothing of the privations of his sea journey, did at least know about the scenery he passed through on his way to salvation.

I’m a sucker for esoteric lectures, so I was intrigued to see that the subject of the evening’s after dinner talk was going to be ‘The non-existent islands of the Antarctic’ and the lecturer, Bob Headland. I knew Bob from way back after I had been on South Georgia, and because there is possibly no one on earth who knows more than he does about the history of the Antarctic, I knew it would be good. It was.

His point was that there were 19 separate islands in the Southern Ocean and on the Admiralty charts that were not actually islands at all. Didn’t exist. Weren’t there. The first of them was ‘discovered’ back in 1578 by Sir Francis Drake, the last by a Norwegian whaler called Sigurd Henriksen as recently as 1929. All of them were laid solemnly out on the charts as real obstacles and opportunities, and all featured on those charts until the 1940s.

How could it have happened? The answer to that question is as fascinating as the non-islands themselves. One or two may even have been there, when first spotted, volcanoes that rose from and fell back into the waves. Some were icebergs, maybe rolled over on their sides and black with detritus from the seabed; some were mirages- not uncommon down in the Southern Ocean, and one was probably a blue whale, yet onto the charts they went with that deep imperial self-confidence. All were mistakes, either accidental (eg poor navigation, drunkenness or exaggeration of flotsam) or deliberate (ie deception). British sealer, George Norris, was the worst offender with three in just 1825: Thompson Island (which you won’t find at 53.85 degrees south, 3.37 degrees east), The Chimneys and Lindsay Island. Others were just as enthusiastic: whalers, merchants, bulk carriers and explorers. All reported something, and all were believed.

I love this, which is why I am sharing it. I love the idea of the self-confidence of the observer meeting the credulity of the chart maker and an island actually being ‘born’ in consequence. I love the cockiness of Daniel Dougherty, Richard Macy and Thomas Burdwood, all of whom named the non-existent island after themselves. I love that for decades, centuries even, navigators steered their course wide of an obstacle that wasn’t there, and never had been. I love that we ate, that night, New South Greenland Chicken Casserole, Volcanic Saffron Rice and drank Keates Island Coffee.

Most of all I love that we still have the time and inclination to celebrate things that are wonderfully, magnificently bonkers.