Qualla: Misima Island

Misima Island: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Gold was discovered on Misima late in 1888. By March of the following year eighty men were digging for it, a storekeeper had set up shop, and the first foreign economy in the history of the Louisiade Archipelago was already reshaping a place whose people had lived by gardens and canoes for three and a half thousand years. The rush came and went. A hundred years later an industrial mine took the same ground, ran for fourteen years, then closed in 2004. Today the mine is rehabilitated and empty, the big machines gone, and the island is trying to remember how to feed itself on coconuts and copra and whatever small quantities of gold can still be panned by hand.

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Misima Island: Koia Tau in the Clouds

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Misima is a volcanic island - steep, forested, and considerably higher than it looks from a passing yacht. Mount Koia Tau reaches 1,036 meters, the tallest peak in the entire Louisiade Archipelago. Improbably, it was not summited on any recorded climb until 24 December 2016, when...

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Misima Island: The French Names

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Louis Antoine de Bougainville sighted Misima in 1768, and in 1793 Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux explored it during a French expedition looking for the lost navigator La Perouse. The island's name owes itself to a lieutenant on that voyage, Elisabeth-Paul-Edouard de Rossel - whose...

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Misima Island: The Mine and Its Afterlife

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The modern Misima mine opened in 1989, a joint venture between Placer Dome and the state-owned Orogen Minerals. For fourteen years it was one of Papua New Guinea's largest gold and silver operations, providing steady wages for hundreds of islanders and a scale of economic activit...

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Misima Island: Copra, Cacao, and the Sea

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For families outside the mining economy, income has always come from cash crops and the lagoon. Coconut plantations line the north coast, their fallen fruit dried into copra and shipped out to Alotau. Cacao grows well in the volcanic soil, and a trickle of fine chocolate beans le...

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Misima Island: The Road In, the Road Out

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bwagaoia sits on the southeast corner of the island and serves as both the main town and the seat of the Samarai-Murua District. It holds the hospital, the high school, the post office, and the ferry dock. Getting to Misima has always been difficult. Airlines of Papua New Guinea ...

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