St. Matthew Island is said to be the most remote place in Alaska | Hacker News Reader

St. Matthew Island is said to be the most remote place in Alaska

hakaimagazine.com

149 pointsStratoscope63 comments

I've always been really interested in these far flung places and used to spend hours on Google Earth scanning the middles of the oceans for islands like this and think about how to visit them.

In particular I've always been fascinated by Tristan da Cunha which has a village and is livable if you can get there:

https://wikitravel.org/en/Tristan_da_Cunha

And Bouvet Island, which is totally uninhabited:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island

And for whatever reason, one I discovered by browsing Google Earth directly (as opposed to the others which people mention as far flung places), which I can't remember the names of right now, but I can find them on Google maps though they're not labeled: a series of three islands between NZ and Antarctica, closer to Antarctica. Barren islands only potentially visitable for part of the year. The winds and sea in the Southern Ocean sound terrifying. Here's the pin:

Dropped pin Near South Pacific Ocean https://maps.app.goo.gl/PpsVCzE7LXLrZFZe8

We're lucky to be able to see some videos of these places on youtube. When I was little, there were only satellite images and the occasional grainy photo or two online if one did a deep search.

A short documentary of a place called Kurlis came out recently, you should watch it if you're interested. It's about conservation.

https://youtu.be/kHGarqZFY1k

This documentary is particularly interesting for me because I used to browse satellite imagery of the place and to see people walking around it it's as amazing as I had imagined. A volcano in the middle of a lake in a remote island???! Thinking about this stuff is also what led me to have a tech career that has been related to conservation of these places (Kurlis from satellite):

Dropped pin Near Severo-Kurilsky District, Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, 694550 https://maps.app.goo.gl/6X54ZqdruRgB5KYW7

Those Antarctic islands are the Balleny Islands. I took a cruise a couple of years ago from NZ to Antarctica, and we were able to land on Borradaile island [1], one of the Ballenys. I can't find my notes for the exact figure, but the historian on board said that, including us, only a few hundred people had ever set foot there. Many expeditions pass within sight of them, but landing is treacherous--IIRC, we went onshore for about an hour in the morning, and by lunch it no longer would've been possible to do so.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borradaile_Island

Yes! Balleny! That is a really great story, I'm jealous you got to go there. That aligns with my understanding that it's very difficult to actually land there even if you plan it really well. Sounds like you had the luck of a lifetime, amazing.

If you took pictures please consider adding them to the Wikipedia page. There seem to be relatively few available.

Maybe you’re already aware of it, but the book “Atlas of Remote Islands” may be of interest:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_Remote_Islands

At one time you could group Wikipedia articles in “books” that you could have printed. I had collected all the islands listed in the book mentioned above into a sort of companion:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:A_Companion_Guide_to_At...

I was not! This looks great. I went ahead and ordered the hardcover edition, thank you for the heads up.

Not quite so remote but another thoroughly fascinating island is Miquelon-Langlade, part of St. Pierre et Miquelon.

What's thoroughly fascinating about both St. Pierre and Miquelon is that it's the last remaining French territory in North America, and located right off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

It's the only place in North America where you actually spend Euros and the cars have EU license plates. The supermarkets sell authentic French wine and chocolate and will charge you for grocery bags, just like in Europe.

The vast majority (upwards of 90% I believe) of the 6000ish residents though live on the smaller island of St. Pierre. The nearby much larger island of Miquelon, and the attached island of Langlade to its south, are vastly barren with a very basic settlement that has 1 restaurant and 1 bakery. There are a couple of inns on it, and I managed to rent a bike from the one I stayed at, and used it to bike down to Langlade. A few photos from my trip:

https://dheera.net/photos/places/spm

The road to Langlade is actually very well-paved until the very end. It's a very nice road for biking, although a little terrifying hearing the waves crashing into the island on both sides, some wild horses, and no humans in sight:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.dheera.net/photos/places/spm...

I love exploring these "politically interesting" islands.

Another one I explored is the Matsu Islands which are very close to the coast of China but under control of the ROC (Taiwan) government. It's also a very interesting place. As a part of the ROC, it's littered with 7-Elevens. But due to the history of the place, its signs claim it to be a part of Fujian province, though Fujian under the ROC rather than Fujian under the PRC. (Not here to debate the politics, it's just what the local signs say.)

Facinating. How is it coping with covid? Is there an exception to allow people from the island to go to Canada?

I didn't go there during Covid -- this was several years ago. I'm not sure of the answer to that question.

I think this is more mainstream than the remote places you linked (and, since it's pretty close to the Australian coast, not that remote) but Ball's pyramid is an uninhabited place that gives me strong "hard bonus mini-boss for the completionists" vibes [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid

That is also the last habitat of Lord Howe Island stick insect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryococelus_australis

Dragon Roost island in Zelda: Wind Waker is based on this feature

Well you definitely couldn't land the Highwind on it. Would make sense that you need a Gold Chocobo.

I've always wanted to check out Raoul Island[1] in the Kermadecs, it looks quite lovely apart from the active volcanic lake that killed a ranger, and South Georgia Island[2] - especially after reading about Shackleton's epic feat of endurance[3] where they sailed 1300km in a small boat, then crossed the mountains of South Georgia to reach a whaling station to summon help.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Island

[2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Georgia_and_the_South_Sa...

[3]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Exped...

I share the same interest. I remember years ago looking on Google Maps at South Georgia and dreaming about going there one day.

Well I decided to make "one day" happen and visited there as part of a two month sailing voyage on a tall ship. We also visited Antarctica and a number of Antarctic islands. Deception Island was a highlight. We approached Tristan da Cunha but couldn't land due to the swell, which was disappointing.

I still dream about visiting these remote places, but the voyage did a great job of satisfying the urge (for now).

The voyage was via barkeuropa.com and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

I have long thought about going on a trip with bark europa. They come around to seattle every few years. Glad it was good for you.

Reminds me of René-Levasseur Island in Canada. It is a nearly circular island within a lake that's not much bigger than itself. And it, in turn, contains lakes, with islands within them.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ren%C3%A9-Levasseur+Island...

That's always one of my favorites to look at. Zoom out a bit and it's really obvious that it was formed by a meteorite impact.

The whole lake is a giant hydroelectric reservoir, too.

I'll admit I had only really been looking into the oceans for places like this. I'm really enjoying reading about René-Levasseur Island, thank you for posting!

Another isolated but inhabited island is North Sentinel Island. Do not visit!

https://www.google.com/search?q=north+sentinel+island

I also routinely wander on google maps in search of remote islands. I always wonder what it’s like to grow up in a place like that. If I wanted to live in New York City or Paris or Beijing, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But for those remote islands, living there is only an experience for a small portion of human beings.

I do this as well. Actually what fascinates me much more than remote islands is remote islands with evidence of human settlements.

Remote uninhabited islands are easy to find. It's the ones with like a village of 20 houses and a dirt path that I find super interesting. Who lives in those houses? How do they get their groceries? What do they do on the weekends? How do they make a living? Do they have internet access? How did they get the materials there to build houses? What do the houses look like on the inside?

Tom Neale spent much of his life living on a tiny island in the Cook Islands. His book, "An Island to One's Self" is a great read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Neale

If you can make it to Svalbard, it's worth it. It's like nothing I have ever seen before or since. Pictures don't do it justice.

I went to Svalbard in the dead of winter. Very fun experience, not seeing the sun for a week straight.

The downside of Svalbard though is that it's very difficult to randomly explore on your own. There aren't any roads outside the settlements, and you need a rifle and a snowmobile and government registration to go anywhere outside it. Snowmobiles can be bought but are almost impossible to rent; rifles can be rented but if you don't have skills you can't expect to suddenly have them when faced with a polar bear in a life-threatening situation. There is zero infrastructure outside the settlements so it's not a joke.

So ultimately I was mostly confined to the town of Longyearbyen and vinicity but it was fun anyway. I managed to get to Bjorndalen and a couple of other nearby places via some locals who I found on Facebook, but that's about as far as I was able to get.

Don't expect the same level of exploration freedom you could get by, say, renting a car in Canada or whatever.

The thing I found most fascinating about Longyearbyen, ironically, is how normal life was there at a town so close to the north pole. People had gigabit internet access, a couple of bars, and a supermarket. Nothing was out of the ordinary, really, except for the lack of the sun.

I'm definitely interested in making it there! I need to find an excuse to do some research at Ny Alesund though. I've been to the South Pole and I figure Ny Alesund is the northernmost I can reasonably go (My current record for positive latitude is ~72.6 N at Summit Station, Greenland. Ny-Alesund would get me an extra 6 degrees.)

> I've always been really interested in these far flung places

This is what keeps me interested in such things regarding the USPS and similar [0]. How are they fed? Funded? Staffed? Otherwise maintained with supplies e.g. mechanically, computationally, electronically, &c?

I do not think my reference video is so far fetched regarding such a question.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhRFaY8A9cA

The USPS doesn't actually deliver everywhere. There are places in NC, CA, and NY that don't get mail delivered.

They definitely don't deliver everywhere and that actually causes further complications. I detail a lot of it in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22988096

I like to do this too. I've tried finding islands without names or county claims on them, but it's fairly difficult to do this–the islands you linked are the only ones I've been able to find.

In an interesting coincidence, Tristan da Cunha and Bouvet Island are both featured in Geoffrey Jenkins' A Grue of Ice (US title The Disappearing Island), along with the fictional Thompson Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island#In_fiction

St Kilda is another that might interest you – it's somewhere I'd like to visit one day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmf7OZCe63s

No one lives there anymore, but there's still a small abandoned village where people used to live about 100 years ago.

Island on the Edge of the World is a good read about it.

Thanks for sharing that documentary, I really enjoyed it! I myself have been fascinated by South Georgia and Kerguelen recently.

Remote is more than a measure of distance on a map. Among climbers there is a logic about remote places: it took a week to get to the moon and back. There are places on rock faces and up mountians that take longer, that are more remote than the moon. In places like the alaska/canadian/russian north is very possible to be trapped by weather for days, weeks, even months. That is more remote than any island.

Neal Stephenson invented a humorous and not entirely serious comparison of difficulty of ground travel, measured in "Lewis and Clark Expedition Day" (LAC).

In which the relative difficulty and trouble in covering an amount of terrain is measured in units of LACs, equivalent to the theorized amount of suffering a member of the LAC expedition experienced in one day.

The military does similar, measuring distance in days required for a footsoldier with a pack. A mountain forest in winter? Snow many meters deep with trees only a meter apart? Low visibility? Wind? Uphill? A platoon might move less than a single kilometer per day.

Since ancient history, China used the distance unit li (里). While it was theoretically moved to some sort of standard in the Qin dynasty (The Qin was the dynasty ruled by the tyrant that built the great wall and the terracotta warriors, famous for the attempted and actual standardizations of weights and measures), it has effectively also, otherwise and perhaps generally been an effort-based unit in colloquial use. As recently as early this century I encountered people who still used the li in the effort-based way in Yunnan province (highly mountainous).

Here is a place (San Agustín sump) that takes 3 weeks to get to from the cave entrance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_Huautla

> In 1994, during a 135-day expedition of 44 people ...

wow

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but using the moon as an example is a bit far-fetched, as well as the metric being time. I thinkl it would be fair to say: Using the same amount of resources, how hard is it to reach a given point?

There is always someone who will fly a helicopter into the remote outback...

> is very possible to be trapped by weather for days, weeks, even months. That is more remote than any island.

Except those islands that you can't reach due to weather for days, weeks or, even months...

Ridiculous!

It would take longer to get to the moon and back if you walked there. There is no place on Earth that you couldn't get to quicker if your budget was the same

Try flying a helicopter in the mountains during an alaskan blizzard. All the money in the world wont get you there any faster. And there are sides of cliffs where air rescue is impossible in even the best weather.

Mm, "all the money in the world" would totally get you there faster. You'd be able to fly in a helicopter with a FIPS (which allows flight in full icing conditions without limitation.) You might not want to get too close to the ground for various reasons, but then parachute put some guys with Jetskis and drop down supplies and oxygen in strategic places and you can damn well get to where you want to be - significantly faster than some dudes on foot. Heck, even without a FIPS, you can fly larger helicopters in some icing conditions.

Icing? That isn't the issue. It is wind and visibility. Helos don't fly in blizzards.

Well, I have an experienced helicopter pilot literally in front of me who said the icing is indeed the biggest issue.

Helicopters can indeed fly ILS, and larger helicopters can indeed fly into severe wind. Even HH-60s have flown into hurricanes before. While ILS flight into blizzard conditions would require a very skilled pilot and a capable helicopter, for "all the money in the world" those could easily be provided.

I like how my above comment is -3, classic HN.

Anyone who can get them to fly well at altitude will probably also have plenty of orders from india or pakistan or both.

I feel like if you were to devote huge a chunk of the top engineering talent in the world for 10 years, as was done with the moon missions, then it would certainly happen.

You could use thin rigid supports: something like telescoping linear actuators generated in-situ with a coiling system from flat material. See http://mymechatronics.pbworks.com/w/page/76547795/Telescopin... for an overview of commercially available systems. The same principle sped up would likely do the trick.

Try launching a rocket during a Florida hurricane. You will not go to space today.

With 60s era NASA budgets, adjusted for inflation you might be able to invent a cannon and projectile which could reach such places much sooner.

Another interesting place in Alaska is Whittier where almost everybody in the community lives in a single building:

https://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier...

Here is an HN thread of someone who grew up in Whittier answering questions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8840005

This is one damn fine piece of historical writing. I could read its like all day. This 10m video of a recent scientific visit is also well-done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io8pNQSesS0

The top of my visit-cuz-remote list is the Kerguelen Islands, if I ever figure out how to get there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerguelen_Islands

One fun thing about Ham Radio is learning really odd bits about of unusual geography. There is the IOTA (Islands On The Air) where we try to collect as many as possible. However, apparently this one has resisted https://na-234.com/NA-232_index.html

I have in the past run mobile putting moderately rare US counties on the air.

Not as remote, but on the same general topic of small, very low population islands:

A Glance at Daily Life Among the Caretakers of Britain’s Small Islands [https://nyti.ms/2IlfSgu]

Is there a specific reason early settlers would decide to stay in such harsh climates? Risk/benefit of trying to wander somewhere else?

Surely they would be aware of the benefits of warmth, and perhaps know there are warmer places on Earth?

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