Astrolabe

Donations are the lifeblood of the Turks & Caicos National Museum. Story & Photo Collages By Lisa Turnbow-Talbot Everyone knows that non-profit organizations rely on monetary donations, but for the Turks & Caicos National Museum that is not the only donation that matters. Gifts-in-kind of photographs, videotapes, books, pamphlets, manuscripts, maps, historical objects, business records, organization records, ...

Visualizing the Grand Turk of yesteryear. Story and Images Courtesy Marjorie Sadler In the final pages of H.E. Sadler’s book, Turks Islands Landfall, the author (my father) gives some history of North Creek in Grand Turk which President Forth (served 1848–1854) believed was a huge asset to the island simply awaiting development. Forth was the Turks & ...

The nitty-gritty of filming the East Caicos Expedition documentary. By Matthew Matlack ~ Photos by Matthew Matlack and John Galleymore Filming the East Caicos Expedition documentary was a thrilling endeavor. I had not been camping in years, I had just one experience under my belt filming in caves (which had a gift shop with snacks at the ...

Telling “A Caicos Sloop Story.” Story and Photos By Michael P. Pateman, Ph.D. and Vanessa A. Forbes-Pateman In the Summer 2019 Astrolabe, we introduced “People of the Islands.” This project seeks to tell the story of “Islanders” through a first-person narrative. The various interview topics include boat building, food/cooking, bush medicine, island migration, cultural traditions, music, dance, ...

The Fauna, Part II 1942 By Captain Eric Wiberg In the Summer 2020 issue of the Astrolabe, the author detailed the first part of the tale of the Fauna, a 1,272-ton Dutch steamship. The Fauna left New York on May 6, 1942 destined for Grand Turk with a crew of 29 men and a load of cargo, ...

The rest of the story. By Jeffrey Dodge In 2017, the Astrolabe published a story I wrote about 19 Californians who went to East Caicos in 1940 with the intention of establishing a utopian colony there. (See: https://www.timespub.tc/2018/01/modern-crusoes/). Since that article was published, I have been contacted by descendants of the group’s leader, Richard Irvine. They’ve shared ...

Why would anyone copy this old picture postcard? By Jeffrey Dodge ~ Images Courtesy Jeffrey Dodge Why, in the early 1920s, would someone on Grand Turk island want to copy a specific 1906 picture postcard that was out of print and no longer obtainable? Was the picture on this 1906 postcard of special interest to someone? Most ...

Images of the past. By Joanna Ostapkowicz ~ Images By Merald Clark (copyright) In 2017 during a visit to the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, I came across a temporary exhibit filled with children’s paintings focusing on island history, both past and present. At the very start of the exhibition were several paintings showing Columbus laying ...

The Fauna, Part I, 1942 By Captain Eric Wiberg, Boston, MA What is remarkable about the sinking and the loss of the Fauna off the Turks & Caicos Islands is that her destination was the TCI, and her survivors spent nearly three weeks essentially circumnavigating the Islands in a lifeboat and a local sailboat over the course ...

How ancient people cooked on Providenciales. Story & Photos By Dr. Andy J. Ciofalo Food is a social lubricant, which means it brings us together, gets people talking and is a central point of gatherings, holidays and life. Do you remember cooking your last meal? The way you sliced, pounded, boiled or roasted the vegetables damaged small ...

East Caicos is a treasure trove of relics. Story & Photos By John Galleymore When I was very young, I was shown at school a very basic picture depicting “How History Works.” It showed layers of the Earth with the oldest relics the deepest and those more recent near the surface. I soon came to discover this ...

The Lucayan petroglyphs of East Caicos. By Dr. Michael P. Pateman Archaeological studies of the Lucayan Islands (which includes The Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands) have mainly focused on settlement surveys and large scale village excavations. However, early archaeologists (late 19th and early 20th century) focused most of their efforts on the cave systems of these ...

Survivors of U-Boats: Vineland in 1942, Part II By Captain Eric Wiberg In the Fall 2019 issue of Astrolabe, the author detailed the sinking of the Canadian dry-bulk ship Vineland, on April 20, 1942 by the German submarine U-154 while it was roughly 90 miles north of North Caicos. The survivors voyaged in three lifeboats until they ...

Searching lost wrecks on Salt Cay. Story & Photos By Dr. Joost Morsink and Dr. Ruud Stelten South of Grand Turk, a small and sleepy island rests in the Atlantic Ocean: Salt Cay. With approximately 90 inhabitants on 2.6 square miles, this is the least populated of the main inhabited islands in the Turks & Caicos Islands. ...

Survivors of U-Boat strikes on Stifinder (1918) and Vineland (1942). By Capt. Eric Wiberg ~ Images Courtesy Eric Wiberg Recently, the topic of German and Italian submarine depredations in the Turks & Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Caribbean and US has risen to the surface more often. This includes knowledge of the discovery of the arrival of German naval ...