Anegada Airports
The unlikely island of Anegada has the distinction of being the site of the first airport ever built in the British Virgin Islands. The airstrip that first brought the age of air travel to the BVI was not much more than a hard-packed dirt runway. It was located at West End near Cow Wreck Beach and constructed in hopes of servicing a fledgling shark fishing industry that had started up on the island. The shark fishery never really got off the ground, and the only aircraft to ever land at West End were one or two small private planes from St. Thomas carrying store-bought goods to Anegada residents and returning with local produce and seafood. These flights, however, were so few and far between that it was not long before the airstrip was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Although Anegada's first introduction to the age of air travel had little to no effect on the lives of the residents of this remote island, the next airport to be built on Anegada did bring about considerable social change, but not in the way that most airports do. Anegada's Auguste George Airport was completed in 1969 and is located towards the northern part of the Settlement. As its 2,500-foot runway can only accommodate small aircraft, most visitors still arrive on sailboats and the airport has never been a major player in Anegada's burgeoning tourist industry. Nonetheless, the construction of the Auguste George Airport in the 1960s did result in major changes in the lives and lifestyles of the residents of Anegada. The story of how this came about begins with the unorthodox nature and history of land ownership on the island. For many generations, Anegadians survived by fishing, raising animals and planting crops. The land outside of the Settlement, where people lived, was divided by stone walls about four feet high. The walls separated animal grazing areas from fields where crops such as corn, cotton, potatoes and bananas were grown. The goats and cattle, although capable of breaching the walls, were trained over generations not to. Docile easy-to-train animals were bred by sending those that proved difficult on a speedy trip to the dinner table. Anegadians claim that Queen Victoria bequeathed all Anegada land to the residents of Anegada in the nineteenth century. This claim was tacitly recognized by the British Crown with the issuing of an ordinance in 1885 granting land to those who would have their property boundaries surveyed and registered. For one reason or another, no Anegadian ever followed through with this program, and land ownership on the island remained an unsettled issue until 1961 when a new ordinance defined the residential area known as the Settlement and identified other land to be used for communal animal grazing and agricultural cultivation. These lands accounted for 1,500 of Anegada's 9,500 total acres. The remaining 8,000 acres were to be held in trust for Anegadians and could be leased but not sold. In 1967, a Canadian developer, Kenneth Bates, described by the British press as "a man with the Midas touch," presented the government of the BVI with his plans for the development of Anegada and Wickham's Cay. He somehow was then awarded the lease to those 8,000 acres. Part of the Bates master plan for Anegada and the BVI was to create the airport and service it with roads. The airport was located in the heart of the walled plantation area. The lands were cleared and many of the walls were knocked down, often in strategic places such as the walled off paths that led the animals back to the Settlement at night after being left to graze during the day. Animals and crops were neglected by the men of Anegada who found working on the Bates project to be more economically rewarding. In 1971, the BVI government citing conditions in the Bates agreement that could be regarded as unfair in national terms, purchased Bates' corporation and the plan came to an end. Meanwhile, the balanced pattern of animal husbandry and crop cultivation practiced in Anegada for almost 200 years was broken. Neglected by the farmers, the cattle learned to climb over what was left of the walls and the remaining crops were destroyed. The continued unrestricted grazing has led to such serious erosion that much of Anegada is now bare rock. Life on the small island changed dramatically. Shortly after the demise of the Bates plan, nearly 40 % of the residents left Anegada. Now the only cultivation you see on Anegada is at the government Agricultural Station and on small home gardens. In the 1800s when a ship carrying cow bones (used at the time to make chalk and buttons) wrecked on the reef just offshore of a small sandy cove on the northwest coast of Anegada. For years afterwards these bones washed ashore and the cove became known as Cow Wreck Beach. The last landing at the airstrip before it literally disappeared into the bush was made by "a doctor from Tortola who flew his own plane and tried to make a call to Anegada by air. Having inspected the airfield from above and deciding it looked okay, he went in for his landing and touched down. All went well until an 18-inch ditch across the runway sheared off his landing gear. It seems that one of the locals, wanting to drain a salt marsh, had dug a ditch across the runway. Such is aviation across the West Indies…" (Street's Cruising Guide to the Eastern Caribbean, by Donald Street.) The doctor mentioned in the story was identified by some Anegadians as Tortola's Dr. Tattersoll. Captain Auguste George Airport The airport was named after Captain Auguste George Airport. His daughter, Anegada-born Gracita Faulkner, earned international fame and appeared in leading roles in "La Traviata" and "Faust" for the American Opera Guild. Clair Aero has scheduled service to Anegada from Tortola and St. Thomas using either a single engine plane with a three-person capacity or their twin-engine aircraft capable of carrying seven passengers. There are three flights a week from St. Thomas and four a week from Tortola. The airport also receives some private planes, which arrive every once and a while. On January 20, 1967, a total of 8,092 acres of the island's
9,592 acres were leased [by the Government] to … a British corporation
[Bates-Hill Corporation and its BVI subsidiary of Development Corp. of
Anegada, Ltd.], for the development of a [tax haven] retiree community
and tourist resort over a 199 year period … An international jet
strip, golf courses, residential, commercial and light industrial sites,
a large electrical generating system, marinas, a nursery and sod farm,
and a network of roads were either planned or put under construction.
(Anne LaBastille and Milo Richmond, Birds and Mammals of Anegada Island,
British Virgin Islands) |