During an enjoyable bit of geography geekdom on Facebook today, the discussion turned to the Kerguelen Islands, which are located in the southern Indian Ocean—or the Southern Ocean, depending on which map you use.. The remote islands are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, and the permanent human population consists exclusively of scientific researchers. I had a kind of odd fascination with the Kerguelen Islands as a kid, perhaps because they are a rather large land mass (2,786 square miles) in an exceedingly remote location (2,051 miles from the nearest land), so they are a fertile field for the imagination.
![By Varp (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/618px-Kerguelen_Map.png "By Varp (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons")
Most of the islands’ population appears to consist of seals, so I could envision myself raising an army there and proclaiming myself King of the Dog Mermaids. The islands might have a more Hensonian destiny, though. This is a picture of the Rallier du Baty peninsula on the main island:
![B.navez [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html), CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en), CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/800px-Kerguelen_RallierDuBatty.jpg "B.navez [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html), CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en), CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons")
This is the approach to the Castle of the Crystal in Jim Henson’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal:
© The Jim Henson Company 1982, via darkcrystalmovie.com
Maybe evil actually reigns on those islands, and two plucky young heroes must make an epic journey to save the world…
It’s a good thing I didn’t discover this as a kid, because I probably would have bugged my parents to no end to find a way to get me there.
Photo credits: Varp (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons; B.navez [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons; © The Jim Henson Company 1982, via darkcrystalmovie.com.
