Ascension Island is one of the most remote places on the planet. Since the days of Napoleon it has served as a far-flung outpost of Empire, a communications centre and a vital transportation link during both the Second World War and the Falklands conflict. At the same time it is home to one of the most important sea turtle colonies in the world and is a major breeding area for tropical seabirds. Photographer and naturalist Kevin Schafer spent several weeks on Ascension, which has recently opened its doors to the outside world for the first time. The result is a compelling portrait of a unique tropical island, rich in both human and natural history.
Kevin Schafer clearly has a love of islands (take a look at his other books in the Wild Isle series) and, as he explains, “succumbing to my addiction, I have been fortunate to spend time on dozens of…remote wildlife islands all over the world, Ascension being one of the more intriguing due to its past inaccessibility and immense distance from any mainland."
The Introduction to the book, ‘A Sea on Fire’, is typical of Kevin Schafer’s adept and exciting writing style. The reader can feel Kevin’s enthusiasm for his subject through his words when he relates the birth of the island:
“Imagine: the sea must have boiled. Streams of molten lava from underwater vents transformed water into explosive vapour, shooting great columns of steam high into the sky. As much as half a million tons of ash and cinders may have spewed into the air every hour. Layer upon layer, rock upon rock, the debris would have piled up from the bottom of the sea – ten thousand feet down – until one day, as the steam cleared, a few bits of steaming rock would have been visible above the waves. New land."
The passion Schafer displays for this area somewhat contradicts the opinions of various intrepid explorers, who declared the island “of no use as far as we could tell”. But since when have useful things inspired enthusiasm? It is this lack of usefulness that gives Ascension Island its unique character and beauty. Perhaps if the land been more flat or the weather more temperate sailors would have landed here and countries would have colonised it, but it wasn’t, so they didn’t.
“Life on Ascension was likely never one of either comfort or leisure. The island was defined by work and the unending struggle to make it habitable, a struggle made all the more challenging by the blistering heat and profound isolation.”
Clearly not an ideal holiday resort, its rugged landscape and unpredictable weather mean that is has been able to maintain its uniqueness, hosting a variety of rare endemic wildlife. It is this that drew Kevin Schafer towards Ascension in 2004.
Chapter One gives a concise history of Ascension Island, from the small eighteenth century settlements when it was used as a ‘stationary ship’ to see off any attempts to rescue the imprisoned Napoleon from nearby St. Helena, through its pivotal role in the development of cross-continent communications, towards its fortification during the First and Second World Wars, and on to the present day. The images during this chapter are not altogether typical of Kevin Schafer’s style, combining new with old, man with nature, war with peace. A caption to one of the photographs on page 24 reads:
“In the bleak and baking lava flows behind Comfortless Cove lies the Bonetta Cemetery, named for the ship which landed here in 1838, its crew ravaged by fever. More than a dozen men are buried here from this and other plagued ships – their end must have been horrific.”
The image is fascinating, juxtaposing white rocks with black; the former being that of the graves, symbolising death, and the latter being the lava that formed the island, a symbol of life. Though visually stunning, these pictures are not simply nice scenery.
In Chapter Two ‘Pests and Pioneers’ we find Kevin back to his old self again, with beautiful photographs of the indigenous wildlife and also some of the newcomers. Because Ascension “rose from the sea” as opposed to separating from another mass of land, the creatures found there have had to come from elsewhere, by flying, swimming, drifting, blowing or being carried.
“Eventually, more varied forms of life would have arrived. Migrating birds stopped to rest on Ascension’s shores, leaving behind insects carried in their feathers, or microbes in their faeces. Spiders may have been rafted here on bits of floating wood, while a violent storm might have left a pair of butterflies in its wake.”
Considering Ascension’s remoteness and its status as an active volcano, it is astonishing that anything got there at all, let alone survives. But, they do and luckily Kevin Schafer has captured them on film for us all to see.
