Port-Christmas is a natural and historical site on the Kerguelen Islands, located at the northern tip of the main island, on the east coast of the Loranchet Peninsula. It covers the bottom of Baie de l'Oiseau, the first shelter for sailors approaching the archipelago from the north, and is easily identifiable by the presence at the entrance of a natural arch, now collapsed, known as the Kerguelen Arch.
James Cook docking at Christmas Harbour in December 1776. The Kerguelen Arch is at left. (Engraving by John Webber, 1784)
The Kerguelen Arch on January 2nd, 1893, when the French aviso ship Eure (on the left) renewed its formal takeover.
View of Port-Christmas from Lake Rochegude, with Mount Havergal on the right, Table de l'Oiseau on the left and the Kerguelen Arch in the background, as explorer James Clark Ross passed through in 1840.
Port-Christmas and Baie de l'Oiseau (with the Kerguelen Arch in the background at left) on January 2nd, 1893, when the Eure crew renewed their formal takeover of the archipelago.
The Kerguelen Islands, also known as the Desolation Islands, are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large igneous province mostly submerged in the southern Indian Ocean. They are among the most isolated places on Earth, located more than 3,300 kilometres from Madagascar. The islands, along with Adélie Land, the Crozet Islands, Amsterdam and Saint Paul islands, and France's Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean, are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and are administered as a separate district.
The islands are named after French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec.
Illustration from John Nunn's book about the three years he and his shipwrecked crew survived on the island in the 1820s.
French sailors officially reasserting possession of the Islands on 8 January 1893
Péninsule Rallier du Baty
