Why are there people living permanently in Greenland but nobody (or very few) lives permanently in Kerguelen Islands?
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Because people could walk there. Greenland was already populated by Inuit crossing land bridges or sea ice from islands in Canada thousands of years before being ‘discovered’ by the Vikings coming from Europe.
The islands in the Indian Ocean are far from any other landmass. Seychelles/Mauritius were only discovered in the mid 1700s and even Madagascar was only populated since about 500AD. The Kerguelen islands are even more remote through rough seas. There were whaler outposts like on other remote islands like South Georgia, but once the whales were almost hunted to extinction there was no reason to live there.
There are researchers on Kerguelen but the resupply boat takes a month getting there and back.
Because people could walk there. Greenland was already populated by Inuit crossing land bridges or sea ice from islands in Canada thousands of years before being ‘discovered’ by the Vikings coming from Europe.
The islands in the Indian Ocean are far from any other landmass. Seychelles/Mauritius were only discovered in the mid 1700s and even Madagascar was only populated since about 500AD. The Kerguelen islands are even more remote through rough seas. There were whaler outposts like on other remote islands like South Georgia, but once the whales were almost hunted to extinction there was no reason to live there.
There are researchers on Kerguelen but the resupply boat takes a month getting there and back.
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