Hi, this was surprisingly accurate for a 12min long video. I actually spent 13 months in Port-aux-Français a few years ago. I came as a network admin but I also had to maintain seismology and magnetism equipment. There is no longer any greenhouse nor sheep. It's now forbidden because it's a natural reserve. I had the chance to hike to a lot of different places over the eastern part to work mainly with birds, seals, cats and plants. There are a lot of isolated shelters made of bits and bobs across the island. Sometimes it's a 12 hours walking trip split in 2 days. There are no tracks so you have to use gps and maps a lot. Terrain is really hard to walk and the weather too. It's mainly rocks and swampy terrain. We were 40 during 10 months (we only had 3 boats this year) and you actually make new friends and family there. The environment is mind blowing but the social experience is by far what changed me the most. The tourist path can be a bit deceiving, there is a lot of wait, it's horribly expensive and you only stay 2/4 days on each islands. Cheers
@@ailleurd Hi, kind of. There was something like two families sent in 1912 to live there with sheeps. It was at a place called Port Couvreux. I don't think they all died but it didn't end well. I've heard that they once received visit from a ship and one of the wife left with one of the crew ^^. I actually visited the place, the main building is fully closed but you can still sleep in the "sheep house". The old cemetery with fallen wooden cross is quiet a scenery and tell you it's not a place to settle. To go there it's a two days walk from the base, you really feel at the end of the world there. We were capturing cats to evaluate the population there. We stayed 10 days in this little cabin, the 3 of us. Simple life there, no coms, no running water nor electricity. 4 beds and an old plywood table burnt by candles ahah.
@@kugul1683 I've lost 95% of my pictures due to hard disk failure. But I had the chance to recover the ones from Port-Jeanne-d'Arc where there was the "whale industry" and the ones from Port-Couvreux.
@@julm7744 Sheeps were located on a small island in the gulf, cats are all over the place. It would be quiet impossible to exterminate them from the main land. They do kill them now in certain location where cats eat baby Albatros tho. The debate was more like, why getting ride of the sheeps, they were eating the imported grass that grow on this island. Now no more sheep and this particular grass is blooming in the gulf. The "harm" by the sheep is already done. In the end it's mostly politic like usual :(
my granduncle was part of the first expedition to ever climb on mount ross, the highest point on the island at 1850m above sea level in 1975, it was the last remaining french mountain unexplored by humans
Fun fact: The little number of insect species living on those islands all have tiny, usless wings. It's thought that it's an adaptation to the insane average wind speeds, as normal winged insects would be blown out to sea and die.
Very interesting 🤔 what a strange adaptation. makes me think those wind speeds must be hard to live with, I wonder what standard a Kerguelen storm/hurricane/tornado must be like twice as bad as what the norm is
@@urgiduurrgghh5842 Yep there is a fly without wing which lives in cabbage, it's called Anatalanta Aptera go check it out ^^, the most wind we had was around 170km/h I wonder what was the max recorded. Antarctica stations has some crazy storm too !
adding this to my list of criminally underrated and well produced channels. keep on the grind, you'll make it for sure. edit [9/20/22]: this channel had like 700 subs or soemthing when i said this and now it has 23k wtf, deserved. good luck with your future content!
This comment caused me to subscribe before the video loaded. Maybe I shouldn’t take the opinion of random strangers on the Internet at face value… but it worked out in this case!
That was a great video btw, loved the intro and the “potentially unique environments you’ll get to smoke cigs in” it was well researched, idk how your trucking videos blew up so fast that’s awesome, but I wished you explained in your video between European and American trucks why there aren’t any real trucks with beds in Europe.
Ahaha the intro as a real french from France who is regurlarly eating big wheel of cheese was very funny. Very interesting video didn't know the history behind this piece of land. +1 sub
There was an occupation by settlers with shepherds . They all asked to come back to La Réunion . They consider that it was like Féroé Islands , hence settled down there . Jean Paul Kaufman who had been a hostage in Lebanon visited them as a recovery travel after he was released and wrote a book about Kerguelen and his experience over there .
I like how they went 100% on the naming conventions on the island, on google maps you can see they have a road 66, a lake of the fellowship of the ring, etc
Being a kid that grew up on this island but always felt like an outsider (My parents are from Madrid and I don't speak Catalan), this was an outstandingly refreshing account for the history of the island. I love this place for its nature, history and cuisine, and although I love Balearic music and tourism is pretty much singlehandedly driving the economy of the island, I hope that its rich history is not forgotten. I walk through the Arabic water irrigation system of Ses Feixes on a daily basis, and it is kept in an outrageous state, full of trash and with overgrown vegetation. Videos like this are a massive help in educating the inhabitants of the island to appreciate and respect its rich history. I really appreciate your work.
Did nobody else notice the hilariously sophomoric easter eggs on the airline tickets at 0:39? 😂 Also: the picture of John Nunn at 8:01 looks like it was drawn by Napoleon Dynamite 😅 Great video.
Well done! I can see why you say this took you a long time to put together. Anyway, trips for tourists have been on hold since the pandemic. One of the world's most expensive regularly-scheduled destination.
Isla de Hornos in Chile is also very expensive, and you can have the bad luck to not be able to set foot on this island due to harsh climate, making you spend 3k more dollars to try again.
Hi just a shout for the examplary way you present measurements both in metric and imperial. If only all others did it the way you do it too... This should be the standard! Oh, and a brilliant vid too. Enjoyed it. +1sub
Thank you, c’est très bien, very good done in a few time. Kerguelen seem beautiful. ...I’m waiting for new video, which make me dream. Merci et à bientôt.
my brother is a scientist who will go to this island this winter for a 14 mouth mission. I'm very jealous, i think it will be the experience of a lifetime.
Very interesting story, thank you for doing a video on the Kerguelen islands! As a teenager I read the book about "Atlantis" (the German cruiser you mentioned) and was interested in this forgotten piece of land ever since. Never found much material about it, so I still read and watch everything that has to do with them. And although it does border on science-fiction: I think should the climate change drastically, then one day places like Greenland, Severnaya Semlya and the Kerguelen could become habitable land.
There is a doco on Capt Cook "The incredible true story of the World's Greatest Navigator and Cartographer" well worth a watch. He basically circumnavigated Antarctica twice in his life time as well as a bunch of other amazing stuff. Really enjoyed this one, I'd heard of those islands but knew nothing about them, cheers.
@@theplayer12312 it would require any sort of permanant settlers to go there in the first place, as it is its litteraly just a random big rock where nature scientist come to jerk of isolated without going all the way to antartica ^^
@@nit11 no. he makes these videos in his "stu" for "private purposes" (as he says). he doesn't know I know about his videos, so I sneak them off of his thumb drive (he has one he wears on a necklace) while he sleeps. i'm not sure why he makes them 🤷
I really like this video, it is indeed very interesting. I say that being a French /New-Caledonian, and I was surprised that the main island of Les Îles Kerguelen has the same name as our main island :)
Other FYI : Kerguelen is actually a Briton name, from the westernmost region of France, also called Brittany (Bretagne in french) where I live btw. So this is not a french name but Celtic name, and it is funny to see such an old and forgotten piece of the history still being here in middle of the Indian ocean.
No one notices the continent it's pretty much like zealandia there's also another example of this in the Falklands in out in the Indian Ocean where Madagascar
Such a packed video of information in 12 mins fabulous to watch. I've arrived here through a channel on YT called Thomas Festler Disclosure tonight! ? Anyone that's visited these islands seen a UFO or a uap or a uso (unidentified submerged object?) at all? 🙏👀Up the chanel they talk science all the time it's great
Hilarious intro. The only thing missing was to show they ignored everyone else on their journey who was wasn't French and refused to speak to them not because they didn't speak English but because they didn't speak French.
Magnifique mais il serait temps d'y installer en plus des militaires et scientifiques de façon permanente des citoyens, des Bretons par exemple, capables de résister au froid et aux vents, installer des éoliennes, des ruches, y élever des moutons, planter des arbres...
The weather is to shit according to some scientists that lives there The Doctor make a video conference with some High quality Doctors in France and that is how they deal with these problems