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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 8, 1936)
Isolation Again Grips Tin Can Island Romantic South Sea Isle Because lonely Niuafoou Island has no profitable amount of copra, trading vessels do not call, and its 1200 inhabitants asain face comolete isolation. With no harbor, mail is rowed to nassino- shins, or a 1 strong swimmer essays the task. Above, loft, is one of the highly prized covers from this island "Tin Can Island"; lower left, the rocky, dangerous landing place. Above, center, a photo of the island. Below, center, sketch of the way mail is taken to ships. Right, a native. By Woods Peters A SPUTTERING radio, dependent on a swiftly dwindling gasoline supply, is the last contact for lonely Niuafoou Island in the far South Seas. One ship, perhaps two ships, may call each year if the water is utterly smooth as they pass the island; if not, the islanders may again revert to the use of the fire sticks that served them as late as two years ago. They may be forced to eat only the fish of the sea and the scanty vegetables their tiny island will produce. Twelve hundred people, includ ing one white man and a Catholic nun may be utterly marooned almost in sight of one of the Pacific's busiest shipping lanes, because the copra business there does not warrant regular calls of trading schooners, and the expense of detouring transpacific liners for occasional souvenir mall is prohibitive. Two years ago, if the name "Niuafoou" was men tioned not one individual in perhaps a million would have recognized it. Today "Niuafoou" is familiar in every city and town In the world where stamp clubs meet. There are more than 30,000 people in America alone who boast letters carrying its unique postmark, for Niuafoou is the famous "Tin Can Island" where mail is was swum through the open sea from ship to land. Today that service has been stopped, except for the few letters that travel by casual trading schooners, and phila telists may never again bo able to receive its post mark "DISPATCHED BY TIN CAN MAIL" unless they chance a wait of months or years upon the erratic wanderings of these casual craft Have you ever stood at Walklki? If you have visited that famed American play-beach In Hawaii and looked down the light-path over the sea just after the moon had passed the eenith, you have 1 Strange Island of Niuafoou, Ruled by Barefoot Queen, Cut Off From World "Tin Can" Mail Delivery Suspended As Copra Trade Slumps looked toward Niuafoou. Lying 2,908 miles west of south of Honolulu, it is 5,312 miles from San Fran cisco as steamers ply. THERE is perhaps no stranger island in all the world than is Niuafoou. A unit of the only mon archy left in the Pacific, it is part of the Tongan kingdom. Distantly ruled by a barefoot queen, Salote Tubou of Tongatabu, who on state occasions dons an ermine cloak despite the tropic climate, Niuafoou's native inhabitants respond to the dic tates of a much-beaded-and-shelled chieftain with 'unpronounceable name. The island, itself, could not be classed as a tour ist resort. There is no harbor, nor even a landing place worthy of the name. Opposite the little vil lage of Agaha (pronounced Ahn-gah'-ha) there is a slightly lower place in the cliff where in calm weather whale boats may come within a few feet of the shore. At all other periods he who desires to go ashore must leap into the surf and swim, braving tricky currents and marauding sharks, to be Anally hauled bodily by a line up the face of the rocks. Ashore, the visitor finds himself on a volcanic rock almost 300 miles from the nearest land, half way between Samoa and Fiji and 380 miles north of Tonga's capital "city" on Tongatabu. Niuafoou is unique in that it is a volcanic "doughnut." Three and one-half miles in diameter, it holds a roughly circular lake two and one-half miles in diameter and about 70 feet above the level of the surrounding ocean. Within this lake there is another island and on that a smaller fresh-water lake, so, were you a resident on Niuafoou, you might take an evening dip "in the lake on the island in the lake on the island." To make matters really enjoyable from the visit or's standpoint, Niuafoou is an active volcano. No later than 1929 it burst into activity, lava stream ing down the outer rim toward the sea, wiping out everything in its path with the exception of the Catholic church at Fatu, which still stands today, a white landmark in the desolation of tumbled brown rock. THE island first came into world prominence back in 1930 when parties of scientists visited it to secure photographs and observations of the solar eclipse which was best visible from that point. Prior to that, W. G. Quensell, trading post operator stationed there, had been mailing a few letters to certain friends scattered about the world, post marking them with the "Tin Can Mail" cancella tion which is now so famous. But the island did not become known to the general public until some three years later. At that date a story "broke" in San Francisco. The Oceanic liner Mariposa, plying north from Sydney, Australia, to San Francisco, had been flagged down in the open sea opposite Niuafoou by a tiny native canoe. A letter was passed up the side of the liner that told of the cessation of calls by trading schooners, due to the drop in the price of copra, and the breakdown of their radio. "We are making fire with fire stick," it said. For months they had been out of commodities that are usually considered as essentials. "Can you send something ashore for us?" Supplies were sent, and during the months that followed, this liner and her sister ship, the Mon terey, paused more or less regularly to drop rafts carrying mail and necessities. "Is Prince George married yet?" one of the out coming letters had asked. "Are there any wars threatening? . . . What is the depression doing to the rest of the world?" MAINLAND friends bundled together news papers and magazines and when weather per mitted, set them adrift on the rafts. When currents permitted they were rescued and towed ashore by the native swimmers. Sometimes they went astray. Some may never have been seen again; one, how ever, carried clear through to an isolated island of the Fiji group and all items came back to the send ers endorsed in red: "This mail went astray from Niuafoou and was picked up at Fiji." Mr. Quensell has been on Niuafoou some 20 years. Other white men, from time to time, have spent a while there, but these men could almost be numbered on the fingers of two hands. It requires a special type of character to enjoy Niua foou. There must be a streak of fatalism else the presence of the volcano would be a constant worry. There must be a sufficiency within oneself, or the lack of occupation and diversion would be unbear able. On the distant horizon a ship is sometimes seen ; that is Niuafoou's contact with the world. At long intervals a letter may come from some "out side" friend. That is an epochal day, one to bring copra harvesting to a stop, while the missive is read and re-read, and dreaming eyes envision in the Tongan sunset far places where the world moves at a truly fearful pace, and steel horses called "trains" thunder louder than does Pelee in her tantrums. Old Tacoma Tunnel Recalls Colorful Days In Northwest Was Used By Smugglers BOISTEROUS days of the old West when men often went unwillingly down to the sea in ships, through the agency of crimps, and when Chinese Coolie laborers were smuggled into the raw coun try of the Pacific Northwest to work the railroads, were recalled with the recent uncovering of a nar row tunnel beneath the main business district of Tacoma, Wash. The dark, narrow tunnel, prosaically enough, was discovered by a crew of workmen making excavations prearatory to laying city light con duit. It was located within a block of the public safety building that houws Tacoma's police de partment. To many old-timers the "find" brought back vivid recol lections of the days when the crimps and Chinese smugglers plied thoir nefarious trades. The passageway was about three feet In width and arched to B height of about five feet. The destination of the passageway is still a mys tery. Indications are that it ran to what formerly may have boon an oiening somewhere along the waterfront. Such a tunnel, the aid-timers recalled, would have been Ideal for shanghaiing drunken men from the rear of some of the notorious saloons that stood in this part of Tacoma a half century ago. In those days, hundreds of sailing vessels from all parts of the world crowded Tacoma's waterfront. Similar tunnels, believed to have been used by the Chinese smugglers, have been found elsewhere In the city. But whatever the original purpose of the tunnel may have been, there seems little likelihood that it ever will be fully explained, for the city light department, anxious to get its conduit in place, has sealed the owning with concrete. PAGE TWO Quit Job to Build Sailboat Now He's Off to See World i "Crazy" Bennett To Sail On Adventurous Voyage To Far Lands Alone In 34-Foot Boat THEY called him "Crazy" Bennett. All the long years that he puttered on the ribs of his boat in Los Angeles Harbor, they thought him queer. Now they know better. For "Crazy" Bennett, William P. Bennett, who used to be a life insurance salesman, has thrown away 38 years of his life to resume, at 53, an around-the-world voyage which he abandoned in 18H7 at Galveston, Texas. Since he was a youngster in knee breeches, Ben nett has dreamed of a voyage to the far romantic spots of the globe not the places frequented by tourists, but the remote still primitive places. To him strange horizons call Zamboanga, Sandakan, Noumea! Mixed in with a good percentage of prac ticality is much of the dreamer in Bennett's make up. Adventure and romance have been beckoning to him in the last few years, and at last he has , heeded the call of the "blue road." "It's no use talking about those 38 years," he said, the other day, while his hard knuckles gripped the tiller of his 34-foot sailboat. Island Belle. The wind, fresh off the Pacific, blew his graying hair back from a seamed and leathery face. The two sails swelled and tugged, the water sang under the bows, and between millionaires' yachts the Island Belle slipped out toward the Inlet of Balboa Bay. Bennett is no millionaire far from it He sailed, when he was 19, on the bark Guy C. Goss from Santa Monica to San Francisco and around the Horn to New York. Sick as a pup, he had to leave the ship at Galveston, Texas, and his seagoing days ended almost forever. "1 sold insurance and real estate in Colorado and California, but I never forgot the soa," he said, Wi 4..W'JW4Ml...t.!l,A...l,J ..,', I. ... MI'aiim WI.I IU '.' . " . " " ( IV! jr. I hi vCtest,1! --lt.."$- .... .. . - - 1 .1 . Wl old ' l - A llllam P. Bennett, who waa called "Crary" Bennett for quitting a safe and comfortable career juit to resume an oiu iuvtniun, 11 mown ners ii mt mier 01 nil nai, ii ana Bene, wmcn took him tlx yean to build He will follow the tea trallt of famed Captain Harry Pigeon, hit friend. The -Itland Belle" it shown catching a light breexa. while the Island Belle set her broad beam smashing through the surf of the inlet "There were troubles in those days that I'm going to forget if I can but no matter. Eight years ago I woke up. I gave up the selling game. Two years later. I laid the keel of this boat, and it took me six hard years to build her, because money was hard to get. Now she's done; she'll outsail any thing her size. In a week, two weeks at most, we'll be gone. In three or four years, maybe, we'll be back. And if all goes as the courageous ex-salesman hope the staunch Island BrUc will have carried him alone to Hawaii. Samoa, the Fijis, the Solomon Islands and Australia. Veteran seamen, who know him, believe he will succeed. Those who don't know his story are still calling him "Crazy" Bennett T
