The Norfolk Island Story: An Illustrated Timeline
The Norfolk Island Story: An Illustrated Timeline of Norfolk Island’s History – by Robin Nisbet
‘’Steadfast in the Pacific, remote and alone. This is the story of an island home.’’
The island was formed from an underwater volcano over 2 million years ago, and slowly over thousands of centuries, birds and plants arrived and a fascinating fusion of flora and fauna evolved into a completely unique ecosystem.
This is something that always fascinated designer, publisher and photographer Robin Nisbet. Capturing the essence of the island through his photography and sharing its multi-layered history through his long-running visitor publication, Discover Norfolk, has become central to his work.
Robin has wanted to tell Norfolk Island’s story in a shortened and concise way for some time. Having recently completed the cinema and lighting show, ‘The Bounty Story‘ – a thorough account of the Mutiny on the Bounty and how that fits in with Norfolk Island’s history – Robin wanted to try to look at the island as a whole and create a fun and interesting way of bringing that to life. Day to day he works a designer and photographer but has a degree in illustration and really wanted to try something in that creative sphere to tell this story. Robin has always brought his illustration background to his design and photography work, but never really as literally as he has done in this publication.
Using a blend of digital illustration and graphic design Robin has playfully brought Norfolk Island’s chronological history to life – all neatly sewn together with a dancing timeline throughout. The images are almost all based on compositions from his photography work that have been crafted together in a vibrant and striking way, with rich textured background and graphic elements. Robin knows as well as anyone that Norfolk Island’s story is so vast, and has so many fascinating twists and turns, that it’s not possible to tell it all in one place. His publication Discover Norfolk and website www.norfolkisland.net holds more varied written words on Norfolk’s history than you will find anywhere, and they are all freely accessible. However, condensing that into a digestible form has not been easy.
Robin tells us “There’s so much to Norfolk Island’s history that this book could have been hundreds of pages long, so trying to summarise that in some visual way has been a wonderful challenge.“
This is the story of the island, and not any specific settlement or era in its history. Settlements have come and gone, but the island is the stalwart and takes centre stage here.
Human inhabitation has spanned four distinct settlement periods on Norfolk Island over the past 1000 years or so, and that’s where things sometimes get confusing. The Norfolk Island story was written to help to thread a visual timeline together to identify some of Norfolk’s key points in history and show how they all connect.
The book has been written to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, and to really try to make the complete multi-layered history of the island a bit more digestible. There is fun rhyming prose that flows throughout to appeal to younger audiences, as well as plenty of break-away fact-file information boxes for those that want to delve a little deeper. The reader can discover as much or as little as they choose.
Anyone that wants to really ensconce themselves in the island’s stories can of course head to www.norfolkisland.net which hosts the largest library of freely accessible Norfolk Island features and articles available anywhere.
The Norfolk Island Story book is a part of a larger filmed and animated project where he will take this all a bit further and give the viewer a fully comprehensive history of the island in about 40mins or so. “Its my plan that between this show and the Bounty Story show I made last year that I’ll have fully summarised Norfolk’s history into two engaging and visually spectacular shows and accompanying books.”
The Norfolk Island Story is a colourful, fully illustrated, 32 page book. It will be available at selected retailers island-wide and makes a fun and entertaining gift or keepsake from this fascinating island home – steadfast in the Pacific.
_____
Image Credit: Robin Nisbet
Article content disclaimer: Article first published in Discover Norfolk, Volume 08 Issue 02, 2025. Please note that details of specific travel, accommodation and touring options may be outdated. References to people, places and businesses, including operating days and times may be have changed. References to Government structure and Government businesses/entities may no longer be applicable. Please check directly with businesses and/or Government websites directly rather than relying on any information contained in this article before you make travel arrangements.
