São Tomé
“One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand.”
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe – 1719
Stranded on a deserted island is a fantasy that keeps recurring in my writing, likely a result of watching too many episodes of Gilligan’s Island or Swiss Family Robinson as a kid.
There are hundreds of “castaway” stories; the real ones are far less well-known than the fictional ones.
Everybody has heard of Robinson Crusoe, but how many people are familiar with Alexander Selkirk?
Selkirk survived four and a half years abandoned on Juan Fernández, a small island off the coast of Chile. The Scottish castaway was the inspiration for Daniel Dafoe’s book, but very few people know who Selkirk is.
Robinson Crusoe consoles his faithful companion, Friday, after saving him from cannibals.
Tom Hanks portrayed a businessman stranded on an island after a plane crash in Castaway. The real “castaway”, Gerald Kingsland, survived a year on a remote island between Australia and Papua New Guinea, but who has ever heard of him?
Tom Hanks’ only companion on the island was a soccer ball named Wilson. Kingsland had his girlfriend with him; but Kingsland and Lucy Irvine haven’t communicated since their rescue.
Tom Hanks and Wilson are still on speaking terms.
Castaway stories go way back. Homer’s Odyssey was written in the 8th century BCE, and Sinbad the Sailor has been around since the 9th century CE. William Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in 1611; about shipwreck survivors stranded on a remote island with wizards, and monsters, and faeries.
Canada has both real and fictional castaways.
Sir John Franklin’s attempt at finding the Northwest passage didn’t go well. Franklin and his crew of 129 perished after spending a year stuck in ice near King William Island in what is now Nunavut. A lesser known story of Ada Blackjack, an Inuit woman who spent two years stranded on an arctic island, has a happier outcome.
Our kids all read Hatchet when they were young; the fictional account of a 13-year-old boy who survived a bush plane crash in northern Alberta. Brian, the protagonist, crash lands the small airplane on a lake after the pilot has a heart attack.
Brian survives wild animal encounters and learns how to make fire using his only tool, a hatchet.
With all of these real and imagined stories collected in my head, my imagination went into overdrive when our travel agent recommended two sparsely populated African islands as a holiday destination.
Today, Bear and I start a 10-day odyssey on the islands of São Tomé and Principe. I will post stories about our adventures as they happen.
It seems fitting that the journey begins on a…
… Friday.
A preview…
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