Qualla: New Island

New Island: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit michael clarke stuff, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1813 the American sealing captain Charles Barnard sailed in to help survivors of a British shipwreck, and the people he rescued repaid him by stealing his ship and abandoning him here. For over a year Barnard lived on New Island with a few companions, a dog, and an open boat, hunting birds and seals to stay alive until British whalers finally carried him off in 1814. The rough stone shelter his party built still stands, folded into the oldest surviving building in the Falklands. That is the kind of place New Island is: small, remote, and bound up with people who came a very long way and then could not leave.

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Image: michael clarke stuff | CC BY-SA 2.0

New Island: The Cliff and the Settlement

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Liam Quinn from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0. New Island lies in the far west of the Falkland archipelago, nearly 150 miles from the capital at Stanley. Most who come arrive by cruise ship, but only the smaller vessels are allowed in, and only for a few hours. From the tiny settlement on the eastern shore, an easy half-mile ...

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Image: Liam Quinn from Canada | CC BY-SA 2.0

New Island: A Reserve, Whole at Last

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BluesyPete, CC BY-SA 3.0. For decades New Island was split in two. New Island South was run as a nature reserve; New Island North was held separately by the writer and photographer Tony Chater. In July 2006 the reserve's trust acquired the northern half as well, and for the first time the entire island wa...

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Image: BluesyPete | CC BY-SA 3.0

New Island: Where the Wildlife Is Tame

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit edited by M.Minderhoud, Public domain. On the gentler eastern slopes, Magellanic and gentoo penguins share white-sand beaches that run down into clear turquoise water. Peale's porpoises sometimes follow boats right into the shallows, nosing up to knee-deep water to inspect visitors. Falkland fur seals and southern sea...

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Image: edited by M.Minderhoud | Public domain

New Island: After Dark

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Brending (2eight), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The real show begins once the light fails. Thousands of thin-billed prions, small grey seabirds that spend their days far out at sea, come streaming back to their burrows under cover of darkness, filling the air with a babble of calls as each one searches for its mate among the t...

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Image: Stefan Brending (2eight) | CC BY-SA 3.0 de