ISLAND of the LOST. Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World. by Joan Druett
Here's an absolutely terrific book for people looking for high adventure. If you enjoyed Alfred Lansing’s ENDURANCE, about Ernest Shackleton –it’s one of the greatest true thrillers ever written -- you'll love ISLAND of the LOST.
Auckland Island is a tiny, storm-lashed island 300 miles south of New Zealand. It's the doorstep to Antarctica and one of the most desolate and forbidding places in the world, the scene of relentless rain, constant gales, and freezing cold. Its latitude drags in one Antarctic storm after another. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.
ISLAND is the story of not one but two shipwrecks on Auckland Island in 1864. Two crews shipwrecked within months of each other, on opposite ends of the island, without knowing the other was there. The chances for a single ship to flounder here was astronomical; but two ships at once in 1864? Truly unbelievable. This is the astonishing story of comparative survival, leadership, and men set against staggering odds. It's about human nature at its very best, and its very worst.
The first ship crushed on the rocks is the Grafton, captained by Thomas Musgrave with his crew of four other men. It's hopelessly wrecked on the south end of Auckland just as winter takes hold. A few months later the Invercauld will wreck on the north end. It’s a larger ship, headed by Captain Delgarno. Before it sank 19 survivors managed to swim ashore in the freezing water. During almost two years and separated by just a few miles, one crew never knew about the other, due to the rugged mountainous terrain of the island.
This is not a tropical castaway story in the South Pacific with turquoise water, gypsum sand and breezy coconut trees. This is a horrific assemblage of jagged rocks, no beaches, little vegetation, and scant resources. There’s little food or water. Author Joan Druett gives us a fine sense for the brutality of the setting. It’s an Arctic climate. Weeks go by without any sun, there’s a constant gale-force wind from the south, the seas run high and violent. Rain and snow are constant for 10 months of the year.
Hundreds of miles from the shipping lines, Captain Musgrave of the Grafton knows there’s little chance of being found or rescued by other ships. Besides, they’ve come to rest in a small inlet, so the chances of being seen by a passing ship are nil. Winter is closing in fast, so the crew of the Grafton digs in. They're aided by the ever-resourceful first mate Francois Reynal, who’s an ingenious MacGyver-esque character. He’s equal parts carpenter, cobbler, inventor, blacksmith, hunter, fisherman, toolmaker, and handyman. He makes clothes from seal skins, fashions tools from his self-made forge, builds watertight shelters, and even finds a way to make nails. He teaches the others various skills and trades and finally, Reynal even build a boat for an attempted escape across the heaving ocean to New Zealand.
How do they cling to life for almost two years? They’re fortunate that an abundance of seals lives near their shelter. Easy pickings at first, the crew becomes inordinately dependent on these seals, for their fur, meat and oil. Seal hunting is almost a daily endeavor, where they venture along the rocks. As the seals thin out, they go jetty to jetty, cove to cove, increasingly further from camp. When the adult seals are depleted, well, there're baby seals. This is a raw survival story after all. Yet when the seals suddenly migrate to warmer climes in the winter, all disappearing, Musgrave adjusts. He scours the rocks for moss, lichen, edible grasses. He’s like a chemist the way he perceives an opportunity and maximizes it.
Musgrave leads brilliantly. He takes full advantage of Reynal’s seemingly endless skills; he assigns the most capable hunter to hunt, fisherman to fish, builder to make shelters. Formalities were dispensed with long ago as the little colony becomes a partnership of equal standing, regardless of background. ISLAND is a case study in leadership and adaptability in a foreign place where every day brings new surprises and crushing disappointments.
On the other end of the island the marooned crew of the Invercauld takes an opposite approach. From the first hours, Captain Delgarno continually fusses about rank and prioritizes hierarchy. He assigns all duties to those with the lowest ranks while he and the officers literally sit around, never so much as rolling up their sleeves. In no time it's every man for himself, each person literally running off in opposite directions, fending for themselves. One by one, the crew succumbs. Still, despite their dire predicament, Delgarno is shockingly paralyzed from taking action, even as the situation spirals down into depravity, starvation and madness. The bleak situation for the Invercauld is one of division, revolt and eventually cannibalism. The literary parallel is clear: it’s a LORD of the FLIES-like crumbling of the social structure.
You read ISLAND of the LOST because it's a great case study for leadership and the willingness to change and adapt. It's inspirational in the seemingly endless resourcefulness of Reynal and others on the Grafton’s crew. It's a book about the worthiness of sharing and collectivism, as opposed to selfishness and stubbornness. You read this book because of the gripping suspense: does anyone make it off?
At first, all I could think about is how in the world will any of these guys survive? Does anybody come out of this alive? As with all great books, the ending is the best part. After sitting on a desolate rock for almost two years, in desperation, these men plot their escape. The final pages are surprising and intensely rewarding. Read ISLAND for a harrowing adventure and a bewildering juxtaposition of order and chaos. Finally, you learn how vast and lonely the world can be. I also found the parts about the sub-Antarctic seal industry in the 1860s to be fascinating.
ISLAND of the LOST may be placed in the annals of survival literature (alongside ROBINSON CRUSOE, DELIVERANCE, INTO THIN AIR, and BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE, Aron Ralston’s chilling tale of cutting off his own arm in a remote Utah crevasse in order to survive a rockfall.) ISLAND was published in 2007 and remains in print after several editions. The first edition (Algonquin) is certainly collectible and affordable and a must for collectors of adventure literature. Remember, always find an unclipped dust jacket and condition is everything.
Here's the Amazon link to ISLAND.
*****
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*****
Here in Arizona, ZIN MIGNON and the MUSTARD MONKS is 99% complete and sits on my editor’s desk. It’s the climactic 4th book in the ZIN MIGNON series and I’m thrilled with it. I work very hard on twisting, unexpected endings and this one should truly have ZIN readers shaking their heads…. ya never saw this coming! ZIN fits with “Amazing children’s stories” but so many adults as well appreciate ZIN for its sly fun and pop-culture. MUSTARD MONKS is up for preorder on all the platforms.
Thank you so much for reading and sharing.
Michael Daswick
Flagstaff, AZ