History
Sea Lion Island is the southernmost inhabited island of the Falkland Islands. Only formerly inhabited Beauchene Island is located further south. Sea Lion Island Settlement is the southernmost settlement of the Falkland Islands. The island has two airstrips. Historically, Sea Lion Island was a sheep farm and a base for slaughtering penguins to render for oil. When the British ship Viscount was wrecked in 1892, the wreckage was used to build the farmhouse.
The island was managed as a sheep farm for almost all of the 20th century, but in 1997 all but a small flock of sheep was removed. In 1990, the Clifton family who owned the island, sold it to the Falkland Islands Development Corporation (FIDC). They had planted 60,000 stands of tussac grass.
Since then, ecotourism has been the only economic activity. In 1986 FIDC constructed the Sea Lion Lodge, with accommodation for 20 guests. It was prefabricated and flown in kit form to the island by Royal Air Force helicopters and has proved to be a success. It is used by tourists and, since 1996, scientific researchers.
There is a memorial to HMS Sheffield on Bull Hill in the south of the island.
Read more about this topic: Sea Lion Island
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)