Guess what mango? All right? So I want to tell you about this game I've been reading about. It's a game called Bob. Have you ever heard of this? It's kind of a variation on rugby and it is pure chaos. You've got to look this up. So it's played in Kirkwall, Scotland, once on Christmas and once on New Year's and the fields it's basically like any street in this tiny island town. So how's that work? All right? So they take the town's three hundred men and they split those three men
up into two teams. And it's done by heritage, so either you're an uppie or a duney, and all based on which clan you came from. I know you're following along with this really well. And it's based on whether your family came from up the road or down the road from the town's cathedral. And the entire goal of the game is for one team to bounce the ball off the corner of a house on one tip of the island, while the other team's goal is to throw the ball in the bay on the other side of
the island, and whoever accomplishes their goal first wins. It's that simple, And so the game is played in alleys and streets and people get jammed up against buildings and walls, and of course there are a ton of injuries from this. So do they stop when someone gets hurt. No, no, So their medics roving the you know, just to treat the injuries if they see any, but you just keep playing.
People will line up on the streets to watch. But basically there's just this giant scrum of three people and it won't move for like twenty minutes or something, and then suddenly the ball will slip out and then they'll be chaos and somebody will run for a bit and then another scrum and the game can take like half a day before a single team will score. That's insane.
But basically there's a ton of pride on the line and the losers have to hear about it, you know, for the rest of the year if they lose, and especially if they lose both of the matches. But you know, on the plus side, I'm guessing there's a lot of drinking and celebrating after the fact. It is rugby after all, right, well, I mean, it is Scotland after all, And that's just the first of nine little known stories we've collected from remote islands. So let's dive in. Y Hey, their podcast listeners,
Welcome to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer and sitting behind that soundproof glass showing off his Gilligan Island coloring book. Have you seen this thing, Mango? Yeah, it's crazy. The skipper always gives gill Against such a hard time, even in coloring book form. In the coloring books, it's pretty crazy. Well, anyway, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So, Mango,
I know today's theme is a little bit strange. Yeah, So I was reading this interesting article in Wired this week about how Charles Darwin thought that there was something special about islands and how you know, because of their isolation and their unique conditions, that the bio diversity on islands is different from the mainland, right right, So you find speech these and variations on animals you might not find in other places, like the walking saucage insects we
talked about on a previous episode if you remember that. Yeah, of course, tree lobsters, yeah, got those. But as I was reading that article, I started wondering, like, are there some fun strange stories that are also unique to remote islands? And you know, things about being isolated that could lead to funny anecdotes we hadn't heard before. So that's kind of the angle on Today's nine Things, and I like that.
So I decided to kick it off with the Game of Bob, which I think we can safely assume doesn't get played anywhere in the else But I'm curious, what do what do you have next? So? Have you ever heard of Harold Hackett from Prince Edward Island? I think you know the answer to that. I have not heard of Harold Hacket. You know what's funny though, is like, the only resident I can think of from Prince Edward Island.
You know who I'm gonna say is Anna Green Game. Yeah, well she's probably a little more famous than Harold, but it is close, I think. So harold story is great because he was fishing on a little boat off the island and he was bored. So he took this empty pepsi bottle and used some electrical tape and he put a message in that bottle, and the message was just his name and address. But then three months later, he got a note from a new pen pal and he
got him totally excited. And since then he's put out over eight thousand messages and bottles and received over responses. I mean, eight thousand is impressive, but actually that response rate is what's unbelievable. Yeah, it's but what's crazier is the depth of the friendships that's arisen from this. So, like he always writes people back, but he's actually been invited to travel around the world with some of these people, and he gets like hundreds of Christmas cards every year.
They come from like South America and Africa. Couples have driven up in motor homes from like South Carolina to meet him. It's incredible. And he's just this like regular tatted up Canadian dude who likes to fish. I'm curious though, like,
has he embraced this internet celebrity. No, he doesn't like to travel, and uh, the only thing he loves to do is like toss messages and bottles overboard and and he just likes the letter but exclusively in Cranberry juice bottles for someone like Yeah, so, so if you see a bottle coming your way, don't get it unless it's a cranberry juice bottle. But he's not on the net. Actually he refuses to get a computer. So all does he drink this cranberry juice? Do we know that or
where this all comes from? That's amazing. All right, Well, I've actually also got a fact related to Princess. I know you were talking about Prince Edward Island, but I'm talking about a different prince. So did you know there's a cargo cult on the island of Tanna and Vanawattu that worships Prince Philip, like Prince Charles's dad, Philip the One and Only. And it isn't that old of a
religion either. This Prince Philip movement only started in the nineteen sixties and it's based on this prophecy that the pale skin son of an ancient mountain god would travel the seas and marry a rich and powerful woman, and that he'd eventually returned to the mountain. And for some reason, when they saw Prince Philip's portrait, they just felt the power. He's just so powerful, you know, especially for someone with
really very little power power. But when he visited vanawa To in nineteen seventy four, it only strengthened their faith. As one chief said at the time, when he saw Prince Philip approaching on a yacht, quote, I saw him on deck in his white uniform, and I knew then that he was the true Messiah. So does Philip even know about this cult? Oh, he definitely does. I mean they sent a nollnal to Buckingham Palace. That's an apparently it's a very traditional club that you'd use for pig hunting.
You know, you should know this thing. And in return, he sent a picture of himself holding the gift, you know, the way through Messiah might hold his nonals. They actually credit him for helping a black man become president in the US. Basically, they think he's responsible for Obama. That's amazing. Okay, So I'd love to go to Vanuatu and see these altars to Prince Philip. But you know one place I would never travel to is Snake Island, right because it's
called Snake Island. Yeah, and snakes are definitely not my thing. But it isn't just me who avoids going there. The Brazilian abe is actually placed a quarantine on the place and you can't go unless you get a special permit. And apparently there's some dispute about how snaky Snake Island is like. Some people claim there are three to five snakes every square meter. Some biologists actually think it's more
like one snake per square meter. But regardless of that, what is definitely true is that the snakes there are incredibly dangerous. There are golden lance head pit vipers, which are actually responsible for more human deaths than any snake in North or South America. And as one biologist told Smithsonian, on the island, you're never more than three ft from death. That is crazy. So there are somewhere in the neighborhood of one to five snakes per square meter, and they're
called golden lance head pit vipers. I don't know how, I've never heard of this place, but that is terrifying. So do people ever go there? I mean they do go there that they're actually used to be people stationed there for a while. There used to be a lighthousekeeper there, but it was deemed too unsafe for him and his family, so and his family I have his family there. So so anyway, that whole lighthouse thing has been automated since
the nineteen twenties. I believe, but there are scientists who go there, and you know, the lencet is actually thrived there because you know, there are no predators, at least no predators on the ground, but there also isn't much to eat, so the snake's got really good at climbing trees and also killing these migratory birds. Yeah, so like over the years, the venom just became stronger and stronger and stronger to kill the birds faster. But this actually
ends up being useful for science. Apparently the venom has all these promising properties that could actually lead to anti cancer drugs. And actually all of this kind of reminds me of barbarian days. Have you read that book. It's like a surfing memoir, so it's really great, but but the guy in it is is just reckless, and he's reckless about chasing waves and surfing and going to like
the most remote places. And there's the story where he's on this island I want to say it's in the Pacific somewhere where they're all these like really venomous sea snakes. They're like deadly poisonous, and he and his friend just keep surfing in this area like without any regard for it, and then on land the snake's actually come, but they're so slow and dumb and awkward that you could just pick them up and throw them back into the sea, which is just terrifying to me. It is totally terrifying.
And now I can't wait. After we've tried to make up for saying bad things about cats and having to do a separate cat episode, now we're gonna hear from all the snake lovers. We're gonna have to do an episode about how much we love snakes. Anyway, I'm gonna
go in a very different direction from Snake Island. There was actually this pretty amazing discovery that took place recently on the Danger Islands, which are these islands that are located off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and it's really hard to get to because of all the
thick sea ice that's there. But recently scientists found this super colony of a daily penguins and and it's great because people were worried that these penguins were dying off, but it turns out that over seven hundred and fifty thousand of these birds have just been quietly thriving. Man and that's amazing. I really like that and definitely like it better than any story about snakes. But so here's
kind of a cute story I found. It's from um On, Shetland, which isn't super remote, but it is the northernmost inhabited place in the UK. Apparently it's two d twelve miles from the Scottish mainland. And perhaps my favorite thing there is this little bus stop called Bobby's Bus Shelter. So basically, years ago, this six year old named Bobby McAuley and two of his pals would catch the bus in this
little rusting shelter. It was like covered, but you know, it was ramshackle, and between all the wind and heavy rain, it eventually had to get taken down. And so little Bobby decided to write to the local newspaper and asked the town for a new bus shelter, and the paper actually took up his cause like they've petitioned the city council, and eventually Bobby and his school friends got their shelter. But then it's almost like out of a fairy tale,
because like these mysterious items started getting donated. First, some proper chairs and a sofa showed up, and then carpeting, and then a microwave and the telephone and curtains and and eventually everyone in the town gone back. And and there's actually a special team that maintains it now and it gets like these themed decorations every once in a while. So it's been turned into like this art exhibit or like a celebration of space travel and tall ships and
underwater life. It was even done up hansibly for the Queen's Jubilee. I mean, it's amazing if you think about. It's all thanks to this little bobby. That's right, So what do you have next? All right, let me see what I want to talk about next. So this one's actually a little bit crazy. But had you heard about someone trying to cut the ear off of one of those Easter Island heads like they tried to ven go it. They totally tried to ven go And this was back
in two thousand and eight. There was a finished tourist there and he was found on a beach just trying to hack this ear off of one of the statues. And so some islander saw him fleeing the scene with a piece of the ear with him. That's so stupid, like it does remind me though of something I've read about, like early Plymouth rock that they weren't very protective of the rocks, so people would actually chisel bits off of it to take it home. But well, what happened to
this guy? I guess he was identified by a tattoos, I think. But the guy issued a public apology and he was fine seventeen thousand dollars, which really is pretty light considering this guy gone to prison for years. That's crazy. Also, I mean, he did give us a fun game to play the next time we're on Easter Island, like which one of these heads isn't like the others? You know, we've got two more island facts to cover before we pick a winner, so let's take a quick break. Welcome
back to Part time Genius. All right, Mango, what's your last island fact? So I had a really hard time picking this. I was thinking about like Rikers Island fact I read about like how Salvador Dolly did a painting for the prisoners there, or you know about those grandmothers in Korea who are total badasses, And yeah, I love that story about how like they said all their daughters and granddaughters to college it's an amazing me. But you know, the thing is, I always go back to animal facts.
And did you know there's a Japanese island called Yakushima where the monkeys ride the deer around for transportation. This is also one of those animal facts that isn't true? Is this right? No? So I looked it up and I didn't believe it at first. I thought it was like maybe like a tourist that caught this one off photo and and that just stormed the internet. Remember, But um,
but it's actually true. They're like scientists who study this, and it's not crazy distances that they're riding them around for. It's like they'll just hop on them to go like from a nearby place to another nearby place. But apparently it is a symbiotic relationship, like the deer eat the seeds and fruit that the monkeys will drop, and the monkeys pay for the rides by grooming the ticks and lights off the deer. It's it's kind of a win win.
And you know, apparently this sort of monkey dear relation only happens on this one island. That's a pretty good fact, Mango, And actually a lot of days I would say it maybe the best fact, but actually I've got one that I've been saving. So in the Canary Islands, in this area called Lagomero, the people that have developed a language
made entirely of whistling. It's called Silbo Gomero. So I'm a little skeptical of like a whistling language is just like signals to one another or um, you know about like warning and danger calls and stuff like that. Now this is actually a full fledged language. You should actually look this up because it's pretty fascinating. It's it's basically the Spanish language whistled, so the structure and the words
they're all derived from Spanish. But linguists have actually identified the consonants and the vowel sounds with it, so you know, you can actually write it out as Spanish. That's pretty remarkable. And and so do do kids on this island speaking? Or is it a dying language? Actually it's a little bit of both. You know. UNESCO has added it to its list of the Masterpieces of Humanity. And in the fifties people realized that silbo was dying out. But now
it's actually being taught in schools. And oddly though, it isn't the only whistling language, their versions of Turkish and Greek and I think French that that are all Frans pose through this whistling as well. Well, that's pretty amazing. And and between that and your rugby fact, I think you have to take home today's trophy, which is kind of a streak for you. Yeah, I think I've won a few in a row here, you know. It's also impressive. I think Tristan has finished most of the coloring book over.
It's really uh well, thank you guys for listening today. I'm sure we forgot some great facts about islands. We'd love to hear those from you. Please email us at part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com or hit us up fact hot Line one eight four four pt Genius. You can always reach us on Facebook or Twitter. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow