Floreana Island
Today our good ship National Geographic Islander took us to the southern-most part of the archipelago. The Island of Floreana happens to hold one of the most historical places in the world, the famous post office barrel. It was here where today our guests did an early outing and experienced what whalers and buccaneers started back in the late seventeen hundreds.
The Post Office Bay on the island of Floreana was not only visited by buccaneers and whalers, but once upon a time it was chosen by a group of Norwegian settlers to be what they would call their home.
It was 1926, the war had lots of families back in Europe ready to move on and to search for new grounds to establish. Unfortunately for a handful of Norwegians, the idea to settle on the Galápagos was planted by unscrupulous people that if found in our times, would try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge!
Galápagos land was not for sale, but a group of people started to sell land properties on the island of Floreana, shortly after the Ecuadorian government started to encourage local Ecuadorians to move into the archipelago for colonization.
The group of Norwegians arrived with high hopes and to start a new era of prosperity for them and their families, but all that they found wasa land of despair. The new settlers were farmers, but the dryness of the coast was not favorable for their former activity, instead they became fishermen. They created a “fishing cannery industry” for the abundant tuna found in this region, but inexplicably it did not go well. Historians attribute the failure to the excessive amount of introduced animals that the island had in those times, making it hard for the settlers to maintain healthy vegetable fields for their consuming; others attribute it to the lack of fresh water and the long periods of drought ness that the islands often experience.
After two years of miserable existence a handful of them were ready to return to Norway, while others decided to pursue better luck in another island, Santa Cruz. The group of Norwegians that stayed on Santa Cruz successfully founded a town that nowadays is known as Puerto Ayora. Only one family directly descended from the original party remains in this town, whiles the rest, well, that is another story…
Today our good ship National Geographic Islander took us to the southern-most part of the archipelago. The Island of Floreana happens to hold one of the most historical places in the world, the famous post office barrel. It was here where today our guests did an early outing and experienced what whalers and buccaneers started back in the late seventeen hundreds.
The Post Office Bay on the island of Floreana was not only visited by buccaneers and whalers, but once upon a time it was chosen by a group of Norwegian settlers to be what they would call their home.
It was 1926, the war had lots of families back in Europe ready to move on and to search for new grounds to establish. Unfortunately for a handful of Norwegians, the idea to settle on the Galápagos was planted by unscrupulous people that if found in our times, would try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge!
Galápagos land was not for sale, but a group of people started to sell land properties on the island of Floreana, shortly after the Ecuadorian government started to encourage local Ecuadorians to move into the archipelago for colonization.
The group of Norwegians arrived with high hopes and to start a new era of prosperity for them and their families, but all that they found wasa land of despair. The new settlers were farmers, but the dryness of the coast was not favorable for their former activity, instead they became fishermen. They created a “fishing cannery industry” for the abundant tuna found in this region, but inexplicably it did not go well. Historians attribute the failure to the excessive amount of introduced animals that the island had in those times, making it hard for the settlers to maintain healthy vegetable fields for their consuming; others attribute it to the lack of fresh water and the long periods of drought ness that the islands often experience.
After two years of miserable existence a handful of them were ready to return to Norway, while others decided to pursue better luck in another island, Santa Cruz. The group of Norwegians that stayed on Santa Cruz successfully founded a town that nowadays is known as Puerto Ayora. Only one family directly descended from the original party remains in this town, whiles the rest, well, that is another story…
