Island on an Island

Sometimes an island has a pond or lake that also happens to contain an island. Twelve Mile Circle likes to call that second, subsidiary island an “island-on-an-island.”


Beaver Island, Michigan

An unnamed island on Font Lake, on Beaver Island, on Lake Michigan. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
An unnamed island on Font Lake, on Beaver Island, on Lake Michigan

Beaver Island is the largest on Lake Michigan. It contains several lowlands, marshy areas, and ponds which makes it a perfect candidate for islands-on-an-island. We found one on the northern part of the island, on Font Lake.

Beaver Island Boat Company‘s ferry, the “Emerald Isle” takes visitors to the island. It runs from Charlevoix, Michigan several times a day. I highly recommend making reservations if crossing with a car during busy months. Additionally, Beaver Island has a small airport if you happen to own a plane. However, no road option exists so it’s either a boat or a plane.

This island-on-an-island also appears on Google Maps imagery. Font Lake is easily accessible from Beaver Island’s primary town, St. James.


Iceland

Tjörnin in Reykjavík. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Lake Tjörnin in Reykjavík

Obviously this condition exists more frequently on larger islands. In the example shown above, the originating island is rather significant: it is the country of Iceland. In this photograph a small island exists on Lake Tjörnin in the midst of Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavík. This was an interesting aside but hardly significant compared to all the other incredible things we saw in Iceland.

I’ll bet our readers in the United Kingdom know many examples of the island-on-an-island phenomenon. What are some of your favourites?

So the next logical extension of this phenomenon would be a lake-on-a-lake-on-a-lake. I haven’t photographed one of those yet although I know that they do exist.


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4 responses to “Island on an Island”

    1. Twelve Mile Circle Avatar

      Correct. The progression would go:

      1. Lake (or sea)
      2. Island
      3. Lake on a lake
      4. Island on an island
      5. Lake on a lake on a lake
      6. Island on an island on an island.

      Here is an actual example of an island on an island on an island in Newfoundland, Canada (actually several of them).

  1. jake Avatar
    jake

    samosir is the biggest island on and island, also another thing i found, 77.804729, -101.610361 i think thats the largest unamed island, unless google maps is lying and it has a size it looks pretty big

  2. jake Avatar
    jake

    i mean it has a name, damn you subconsious making me write things i dont mean to and me not noticing the major complete difference

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