Showing posts with label i. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i. Show all posts

Saturday, July 26, 2008

26 - Île de Milieu, île Saint-Paul, France



On the E coast of the S Indian ocean island.

In the 1880s Charles Lightoller was shipwrecked here. He accurately describes the island in his autobiography, Titanic and Other Ships. During French rule of Mauritius, Saint-Paul as well as île Amsterdam were administered from Port Louis, but they were transferred to Réunion prior to British invasion of Mauritius.
In 1871 a British frigate, HMS Megaera, was wrecked on the island. Most of the 400 persons on board had to remain upwards of three months on the island.
Lightoller suggested that pirates may have used the island and their treasure could be buried in its caves. There is also speculation that officers from the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis hid treasure near the entrance of the bay during World War II.
In 1928, an ill-fated spiny lobster cannery was established on Île Saint-Paul. Seven employees of the cannery were abandoned to their fate on the island when the company went bankrupt in 1931; they later came to be known as Les Oubliés de Saint-Paul ("the forgotten ones of St. Paul"). Five died; the two survivors were finally rescued in 1934.


Monday, June 30, 2008

115 - Izalco, El Salvador

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In the SW. The city's eponymous volcano (or the other way 'round) is one of the most famous and active in El Salvador.



Here's the town:


Wednesday, June 4, 2008

89 - Isanlu Makutu, Nigeria



125mi. NE of Ibadan.

Friday, May 9, 2008

63 - Immenhausen, Germany


5mi. N of Kassel. Home to, apparently, a glass museum.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

36 - Ikaría, Greece

20mi. NW of Patmos.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

11 - Ihumatao, New Zealand

Hill W of Aukland International Airport, overlooking Manukau Harbour. Here's the Maori WIkipedia entry (Maori, being a polynesian language, being most appropriate for a wiki-form):

Ko Ihumatao he nohanga o te takiwā o Tāmaki-makau-rau, i roto anō i te rohe whenua o Ākarana-ki-te-raki (AK). E ai ki Toitū Te Whenua, he nohanga (he 'locality' rānei ki te reo Pākehā) he wāhi nohoia e te tangata, engari kāore anō kia tae te nui o te taupori ki te nui e taea ai te kī he tāone tonu tēnei. Ko Tāmaki-makau-rau tētahi o ngā takiwā o Aotearoa, kei Te Ika-a-Māui taua takiwā.

Monday, February 18, 2008

100 - Ituna, Saskatchewan

175mi. SE of Saskatoon, on the CNR.


View Larger Map

Evidently the town founders also had alphabet geography on their minds:

How did Ituna get its name?

At the time that the railroaders were building the mainline of the Grand Trunk Railroad they had the task of finding names for the little towns along the way. Many of these towns were no more than seven miles apart and an attempt was made as far as possible to name the towns in alphabetical order. As such, there was Fenwood, Goodeve, Hubbard and then a name beginning with the letter "I" was needed.
Perhaps the name was just copied from a town in Oklahoma of the same name, however, it is believed that the name originally came from Rudyard Kipling's story "Puck of Pook's Hill". In this story we read about "The Wall which stretched from Segedunum on the east to Ituna on the west". The Wall is Hadrian's Wall, built by the Romans to keep back the marauding Scots. Ituna was the wide estuary of the River Forth at the end of the wall.
We have a unique name, ancient in origin, and found no where else in Canada.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

74 - Iniesta, Spain

Village in SE Cuenca, 60mi W of Valencia.