Petermann Island is a small island just off the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula of Antarctica, located at 65°10′S 64°10′W / 65.167°S 64.167°W / -65.167; -64.167, just a short distance south of Booth Island and the Lemaire Channel. Just 2 km (1.2 mi) long, the low rounded island is home to the world's southernmost colony of Gentoo Penguins, and also hosts a number of Adelie Penguins.
The island was discovered by a German expedition of 1873-74, who named it after geographer August Petermann. The French Antarctic Expedition of 1908-10 wintered over aboard ship in a cove on the southeast side of the island, named Port Circumcision because it was spotted 1 January 1909, the traditional day for the Feast of the Circumcision.
Huts built by the expedition are gone, although a cairn remains, along with a refuge hut built by Argentina in 1955, and a cross commemorating three members of the British Antarctic Survey who died in a 1982 attempt to cross the sea ice from Faraday Station to Petermann.
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)