Bouvet Island

The most isolated island

Bouvet Island lies about 2,400 km southwest of the Cape of Good Hope and about 1,600 km north of mainland Antarctica.^[3] The nearest land of any kind is Gough Island, also about 1,600 km away.^[2] That makes it one of the most isolated islands in the world.^[3]

It is the top of a volcano. About 89% of its 49 km² is covered by ice, and its highest point, Olavtoppen, reaches 780 m.^[2] Britannica gives older, larger figures of 59 km² and 935 m.^[3] Ice cliffs ring most of the coast, which makes landing extremely difficult.^[3]

Found, lost and found again

The French navigator Jean-Baptiste Bouvet de Lozier sighted land on 1 January 1739. He described “a very high land, covered with snow” and named it Cap de la Circoncision (Cape Circumcision), and the island now carries his name.^[2][3]

Nobody managed to find it again for a long time. In 1825 the British sealing captain George Norris called it Liverpool Island and claimed it for King George IV, but the claim was never followed up.^[2] A German expedition rediscovered the island in 1898.^[3]

How it became Norwegian

In the 1920s Norwegian expeditions to the Antarctic wanted the island as a possible whaling station.^[3] The ship Norvegia, paid for by the shipowner Lars Christensen and led by Captain Harald Horntvedt, put Norwegians ashore for the first time on 1 December 1927.^[2] A royal decree of 23 January 1928 placed the island under Norwegian sovereignty.^[2]

Britain and Norway then recognised each other’s claims in the region on conditions, one of which was that Norway would regulate and limit whaling around the island.^[2] On 27 February 1930 Norway passed its dependency law (bilandsloven). Today it covers Bouvet Island, Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land, which are Norwegian but are not part of the Kingdom of Norway itself.^[1][3]

“Bouvet-øya, Peter I's øy og Dronning Maud Land (45° ø.l.-20° v.l.) er underlagt norsk statshøyhet som biland.”^[1]

Seals, penguins and a station that fell into the sea

Norway made the whole island a nature reserve in 1971.^[3][2] Its most important wildlife area is Nyrøysa, a terrace on the northwest coast that formed in 1955–57. It is also the easiest place to land.^[2]

Nyrøysa holds about 64,000 Antarctic fur seals, the second-largest colony in the world. Around 4,700 gentoo and 400 chinstrap penguins live on the island, and at least 12 bird species breed there. Nothing grows but 12 kinds of moss and about 40 lichens.^[2]

Visitors have struggled to stay. Three huts put up in 1979 were lost to wind and weather. A research station built at Nyrøysa in 1996 disappeared into the sea sometime in 2006–07. The current field station, Norvegia, was set up in January 2014.^[2]