Jeju Vancouver Sardinia Malta Xlendi Ireland EngScotlandWales Cortez Lasqueti Saltspring PEI Cape Breton Penelakut Manhattan Montreal Laval Newfoundland Iceland Galliano Sicily Pender Hornby Madeira Valdez Jamaica Bahama KeyWest Herschel Thetis Gabriola.
So, right off the bat, because of their bridgeyness I have to count Manhattan, Montreal, and Laval off the list. These are pretty much urban spaces unto themselves, and have lost their islandness. Gadz, there are even tunnels that give them the continental connection, and as such, I am tempted also to eliminate EngScotlandWales from the list. But the chunnel hardly serves the whole British island, and though it is more than twice the size of VancIsland, and the largest island on my list, I will leave it on here, because it was there, on that British island, that I first coined the term, "islandy": an adjective that comprises oddities (to me) that result from its being surrounded by the sea; that is, it is finite.
I do not live in a finite world. I can always run away, north, east, west, and if my passport is valid, south. As a definitely continental woman, I can sense traits of islands. These traits are subtle, and I cannot generalize across all islands, because population and climate are factors as well, but islandness is definitely a thing.
Walls: Because of limited space, walls, be they stone, or dirt, or thorny shrubs, or rubble piles, these exist on islands. One can seldom just "cut through" or take the short cut, because many of these hedges and walls and boundary defining barriers are friggin' impenetrable. In Ireland, on Malta, here on Jeju, especially on the hillyer islands, my Manitoba instincts tell me where I am, and that where I am going is "just over there", but private property is not the only issue. These lands are hashmarked and their hiking paths are set, defined and it is a done deal. On continental quests, there are always options.
Gardens: This is a matter of scale, and I concede; what we call gardens are actually farms. What we call flower beds are actually gardens. When I walk in the rural areas of most of these islands, Vancouver Island and Newfoundland included, I see small fields - here, cabbages, there vinyards. Maybe 50 meters across, or even 25. Humble plots, surrounded often by houses and lanes. It feels kind of urban, but then you see them harvesting, commercial-style harvesting, and you realize, no, this is agriculture. It is not a personal project. I always thought the Brits' use of the term "garden" to describe the shed-sized plot where they hang their laundry and have a private beer, as quaint British lingo, (we say, our "yard" which is about the dimension of theirs) but now I see it is "islandy". Our garden is their allotment. Islanders do not have the space to expand, nor often the soil. Rocky islands experience this even moreso - see NFLD, VancIsland.
Flotsam and Jetsam: I supposed any costal areas, not only islands, are marked with seafarer's castoffs, but to me, it is an islandy thing. I am prone to picking up things when I walk. When I travel, I walk and when I walk by the seashores, I pick up and notice the fishers' and boaters' worlds. Rope. Net. Floats. Screens. Wood. Buoys. Bumpers. Here in Jeju, the flotsam is gathered and left to be recycled reused or refused, somewhere. It is on the roadside for pickup. And on islands, this is neverending. I have brought home driftwood boathooks from Ireland, polyester rope chunks from Sardenia, and little floats and markers, beautifully worn by their life adrift, from all across the gulf islands. Certainly, there is some litter, but largely, what we see on islands is what was once at sea. We don't have such pretty litter at home.
Cities: They are smaller. Some islands have biggish cities. Some have multiple cities, say two, and one is generally a lot smaller than the bigONE. But urban sprawl is often controlled. (I'd place Victoria as an exception on that generalization.) Historically, unlimited import was an iffy assumption to island folk, so the farms (and the sea of course) were important for survival. Nowadays, air cargo can bring fresh lobster to fine diners high above Portage and Main. Conversely, islanders can get their wheat flour and almond milk with guaranteed regularity, so self sustenance has become less of an urgency. Fresh water, on the smaller islands can be hoarded against boaters (I have first hand experience on this one), so the finite island mentality increases, the smaller the speck on the sea. Land on an island is finite.
Soon, I will add Japan to my list of islands. I like islands. I suspect that people who live on populated islands with multiple big cities, don't even sense their own islandness. But, if they come to Manitoba and see how the roads run straight, for more than 500 meters a-stretch, and how the fields expand to create horizon, and how the towns end and grant tens, or even hundeds of kilometers of hamlet-free landscape to passers-by, they will sense the difference that I have been struggling to describe, but in reverse.
The differences are not only landscape, climate, and geology. The difference are humanly manifest in attitudes of daily life.
When I visit The Island and people ask where I am from, I tell them, and 7 out of 10 times, the interrogative response is, "Why would you live there?". The answer is, that I am not an islander.
~~n Post28 Day32/75
Walls: Because of limited space, walls, be they stone, or dirt, or thorny shrubs, or rubble piles, these exist on islands. One can seldom just "cut through" or take the short cut, because many of these hedges and walls and boundary defining barriers are friggin' impenetrable. In Ireland, on Malta, here on Jeju, especially on the hillyer islands, my Manitoba instincts tell me where I am, and that where I am going is "just over there", but private property is not the only issue. These lands are hashmarked and their hiking paths are set, defined and it is a done deal. On continental quests, there are always options.
Gardens: This is a matter of scale, and I concede; what we call gardens are actually farms. What we call flower beds are actually gardens. When I walk in the rural areas of most of these islands, Vancouver Island and Newfoundland included, I see small fields - here, cabbages, there vinyards. Maybe 50 meters across, or even 25. Humble plots, surrounded often by houses and lanes. It feels kind of urban, but then you see them harvesting, commercial-style harvesting, and you realize, no, this is agriculture. It is not a personal project. I always thought the Brits' use of the term "garden" to describe the shed-sized plot where they hang their laundry and have a private beer, as quaint British lingo, (we say, our "yard" which is about the dimension of theirs) but now I see it is "islandy". Our garden is their allotment. Islanders do not have the space to expand, nor often the soil. Rocky islands experience this even moreso - see NFLD, VancIsland.
Flotsam and Jetsam: I supposed any costal areas, not only islands, are marked with seafarer's castoffs, but to me, it is an islandy thing. I am prone to picking up things when I walk. When I travel, I walk and when I walk by the seashores, I pick up and notice the fishers' and boaters' worlds. Rope. Net. Floats. Screens. Wood. Buoys. Bumpers. Here in Jeju, the flotsam is gathered and left to be recycled reused or refused, somewhere. It is on the roadside for pickup. And on islands, this is neverending. I have brought home driftwood boathooks from Ireland, polyester rope chunks from Sardenia, and little floats and markers, beautifully worn by their life adrift, from all across the gulf islands. Certainly, there is some litter, but largely, what we see on islands is what was once at sea. We don't have such pretty litter at home.
Cities: They are smaller. Some islands have biggish cities. Some have multiple cities, say two, and one is generally a lot smaller than the bigONE. But urban sprawl is often controlled. (I'd place Victoria as an exception on that generalization.) Historically, unlimited import was an iffy assumption to island folk, so the farms (and the sea of course) were important for survival. Nowadays, air cargo can bring fresh lobster to fine diners high above Portage and Main. Conversely, islanders can get their wheat flour and almond milk with guaranteed regularity, so self sustenance has become less of an urgency. Fresh water, on the smaller islands can be hoarded against boaters (I have first hand experience on this one), so the finite island mentality increases, the smaller the speck on the sea. Land on an island is finite.
Soon, I will add Japan to my list of islands. I like islands. I suspect that people who live on populated islands with multiple big cities, don't even sense their own islandness. But, if they come to Manitoba and see how the roads run straight, for more than 500 meters a-stretch, and how the fields expand to create horizon, and how the towns end and grant tens, or even hundeds of kilometers of hamlet-free landscape to passers-by, they will sense the difference that I have been struggling to describe, but in reverse.
The differences are not only landscape, climate, and geology. The difference are humanly manifest in attitudes of daily life.
When I visit The Island and people ask where I am from, I tell them, and 7 out of 10 times, the interrogative response is, "Why would you live there?". The answer is, that I am not an islander.
~~n Post28 Day32/75
