Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Group is one of the three groups of islands in the Republic of Kiribati. It comprises eight islands and despite evidence of early Polynesian navigation, few of these islands have ever seen a permanent population. The islands of the Phoenix Group have their own unique history.
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Birnie Island is the smallest of the Phoenix Group. It is located 215 nautical miles south of the equator near the centre of a circle of five other Phoenix islands. The island measures less than 3/4 of a mile long by 600 yards at its greatest width.
Most of the east or weather side is rocky with slabs of coral sand stones and broken fragment of coral piled up in a steep beach to a height of more than six feet. The northern half of the island is flat and fairly smooth carpeted with low herbs and bunchgrass.
The very small shallow lagoon occupied a depression bordered by a mass of bright green plants. The lagoon varies considerably in depth as one account gives this depth as six feet while another states that it is nearly dry. The fringing reef is quite narrow, except for points at the north and south ends. There is no anchorage, but landing can be made on the sandy lee beach. There are said to be no signs of former permanent inhabitants.
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Birnie Island was discovered and named by Captain Emment in 1823. He also discovered Sydney Island the same year. Research so far has failed to give any definite information about the discoverer of Birnie Island or his vessel. His name does not appear in an extensive list of New England whaling masters. The most prominent person of that period, for whom the island may have been named was Richard Birnie (1760-1832), who took a leading part in business and official life in England.
The island was visited by the US Exploring Expedition. On August 28, 1840, it was cited by the Vincennes, twelve miles to the westward in the early morning. After surveying Enderbury Island, this vessel tried to go back to get a closer look; but night settling down, they pulled away to avoid piling up on its low treacherous shore in the dark. By morning, they had drifted so far to leeward that they deemed it a waste of time to go back. |
Birnie was among the islands claimed by American guano interest. But nothing has ever been found to indicate that any amount of guano was actually dug. On December 6, 1867, the ship Kamehameha V (Captain Stone) reported sighting the island on its passage from Enderbury to McKean, but no regular stops are recorded as having being made by any of these supply ships.
On July 10, 1889, the British flag was hoisted and a protectorate declared. In 1899, the island was leased to the Pacific Islands Company. In 1916, it was included among the islands leased for 87 years to Captain Allen of the Samoan Shipping and Trading Company. This lease was taken over by Burns Philp (South Sea) Company. In April, 1937, with the rest of the Phoenix Group, it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (now Kiribati and Tuvalu).
There is not much to tell about Birnie, for few people have ever landed there, and practically no use has ever been made of the island. Being so low and difficult to see, it is often regarded as a menace to safe navigation, and in the past, most vessels have carefully avoided it.
Canton Island
Canton Island (also known by its Kiribati name of Kanton or Abariringa) is the largest and most northern of the Phoenix Group. The island is an atoll, made up of a low, narrow rim of land surrounding a large shallow lagoon. Its shape had been likened to that of a pork chop. It is 4.1/2 miles wide on the west, from which it narrows to the southeast point, which is nine miles distant from the northwest point.
The rim of land varies in width from 50 to 600 yards, and its height from 5 to 20 feet. The ocean beach rises steeply from its fringing reef to a crest, within which the surface is fairly level and smooth. The beach is composed alternately of coral sand and broken fragments of reef rocks. On the lagoon side the beach is lower, in places with white sand running out onto the fringing reef.
Much of the rim is nearly bare or sparsely covered with low herbs and bunch grass. A stretch of about two miles on the south side supports a thick stand of Scaevola shrubs, eight to twelve feet high.
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Enderbury Island
Enderbury Island lies 37 nautical miles E.S.E. of Canton and 186 miles south of the equator. In contrast to Canton Island, which is largely lagoon, Enderbury is nearly solid land, with the lagoon reduced to a small, shallow pond, a few hundred yards across, and dotted with sand islets, covered with a mat of Sesuvium, which also carpets the surrounding basin.
The island measures a little less than three miles north and south by about a mile wide. The elevation around much of the rim is between 15 and 22 feet, with a small mound of low-grade guano rising as high again on the northwest side. The central part is depressed toward the south, and to the north has been dug over for guano until it resembles a great mine dump.
Much of the surface is carpeted by herbs, bunchgrass, Sida, and morning-glory vines, and there are also several small clumps of trees. These include three groups of coconut palms, each surrounding a moist depression. Of these there were in 1924, from north to south, 22, 12, and 26 palms; in 1938 several of these were seen to have lost their crown of leaves, 14, 9, and 8 still growing.BR>
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Gardner is the most south-western Island of the Phoenix Group. It is a triangular wedge-shaped coral atoll approximately four miles long by a mile wide at its greatest width. The rim is broken at two places by narrow entrances, one on the west and one near the middle of the south side; both are blocked on the ocean side by a narrow reef, one hundred to three hundred yards wide which surrounds the island.
The inner hundred yards of this reef dries at low water. Off the reef the water is deep. The only anchorage is off the west end, opposite the village, and is safe only with the prevailing southeast trade winds. Landing is difficult, and is best a little south of the anchorage. |
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Most of the rim is covered by a low scrub forest. The trees are highest at the northwest end some reaching a height of 90 feet above sea level. Two small clumps of coconut palms had been planted one on each side of the western lagoon entrance. Sea birds are numerous on the island, and small Polynesian rats. There are the usual land, hermit and coconut crabs. Fish and other marine life are abundant about the reef and in the lagoon.
Hull Island, in the Phoenix Group, is located 249 nautical miles south of the equator, 60 miles west of Sydney Island, and 145 miles eastward of Gardner Island. It is 570 miles to the north of Apia, Samoa.
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The Island is an atoll, consisting of a narrow rim of land, averaging less than 1/4 mile wide, surrounding a lagoon with depths of 50 to 60 feet. The lagoon is a shoal at both ends and contains numerous coral heads, only a few of which come close to the surface. The atoll is shaped like a parallelogram, with sides 4.1/2 by 2.1/2 miles, but the eastern side is bulged outward to a point, so that the atoll's greatest length (E.N.E.-W.S.W.) is about 5.1/2 miles and the average width is 2.1/4 miles.
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The rim on the north and south sides is cut by narrow, shallow lagoon entrances, which vary in number and position as storms break through and shift the sand upon the coral rim. In March, 1924, it was 13.1/2 miles around the rim and there were 17 channels on the north and 4 on the south, instead of the two on each side shown on the old hydrographic chart. Only two were more than waist deep. At present there are 20 on the north side, of which only two will admit a small boat from ocean to lagoon. The best entrance has a depth of about 4 feet, in part cleared by blasting.
The entire atoll is surrounded by a fringing reef, 80 to 250 yards wide, which generally dries at low water. There is no harbour, but with prevailing trade wind, anchorage may be had about 100 yards off the west end, opposite a beacon on the shore. Landing near here is not very difficult in calm weather.
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McKean is the northwestern island of the Phoenix group. It lies 216 nautical miles south of the equator, 135 miles W.N.W. of Hull Island, 150 miles W.S.W. of Canton Island, and 70 miles N.N.E. of Gardner Island.
It is a flat sand and coral island with an oval outline, less than half a mile long (north and south), by 800 yards wide. Like other "pancake" islands, the beach, which is largely composed of beach rock and coral shingle, rises steeply to a crest, 15 to 17 feet high (highest on the north). Within this rim the land is depressed. |
Nikumaroro was colonized in 1938, by I Kiribati under the leadership of Koata of Inotoa, as part of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, a plan developed by Harry Maude of the Western Pacific High Commission to solve the problem of rapidly growing population in southern Kiribati. The colony lasted until 1963, and has a fascinating history in its own right, but for an Earhart afficianado what's especially interesting is that the colonists found bones on the island, which may have been Earhart's, in 1940.
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| Phoenix Island |
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Phoenix Island lies 40 nautical miles in a direction 30 degrees east of south from Enderbury Island, 77 miles from Canton Island, and 222 miles south of the equator. It is about 1,650 miles from Honolulu, and 640 miles due north of Pago Pago, American Samoa. It is the most western of the Phoenix group.
It is a sand and coral island, which might be described as ham-shaped or pear-shaped. It measures a little less than 3/4 miles long, from N.W. to S.E., by less than half a mile wide. The highest elevation is about 18 feet, at the beach crest, the rest of the surface being much lower.
On March 18, 1937, with other islands of the Phoenix group, it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony.
The lagoon is too small and too shallow to be used by seaplanes; and the land, while fairly level, is not large enough to afford safe landing for airplanes. It is, however, another tiny dot of land upon which man can live, and from which weather or other observations could be made.
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| Sydney |
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Sydney is the southeastern island of the Phoenix Group. It lies 267 nautical miles south of the equator, 600 miles north of Pago Pago, and 60 miles east of Hull Island. With the last three islands it forms, a kit-shape, like the Southern Cross, the upright (Sydney to Enderbury) measuring 82 miles, with Phoenix and Birnie on the two sides, each 55 miles away.
Sydney Island might be described as a triangle with rounded corners, the base being about 2 miles, east and west, and each side about 1.3/4 miles. In the centre is a circular, very salty lagoon, about a mile in diameter and up to 15 or 18 feet deep, without channel to the sea, and choked with small islets and shoals. At the southeast corner, an area where guano was dug 55 years ago, became a series of small, only slightly brackish ponds, which now have all but dried up.
The island is surrounded by a fringing reef, about 50 yards wide, behind which to a height of 15 or 20 feet rises a steep beach, partly sandy and partly covered with sandstone slabs and coral rubble. There is good anchorage on the west side, about 200 yards off the reef, in 10 to 14 fathoms, marked by a beacon on shore. Landing is not easy, and at times dangerous.
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