Journeys
The expeditions, reassembled
Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 8 journeys so far, 1924 to 2002, 1,191 specimens between them.
6 collectors and expeditions184 days in the field46,100 km between stops594 photographed specimens
8 journeys match
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Gerrit Parmele Wilder
18 islands · Nov 1924 – May 1925
Gerrit Parmele Wilder across 18 islands, November 1924 – May 1925244 specimens · 43 stops · 188 days · 15,411 km
E.Y. Dawson
Enewetak Atoll and Mauke · Aug – Sep 1955
E.Y. Dawson in Enewetak Atoll and Mauke, August – September 1955435 specimens · 10 stops · 16 days
W.A. Whistler
9 islands · Apr – Jun 1985
W.A. Whistler across 9 islands, April – June 1985140 specimens · 32 stops · 75 days · 9,570 km
Timothy Flynn
6 islands of the Cook Islands · 12–29 Mar 2002
Timothy Flynn across 6 islands of the Cook Islands, 12–29 March 2002110 specimens · 11 stops · 18 days · 2,765 km
W.R. Sykes
3 islands of the Cook Islands · Aug – Sep 1982
W.R. Sykes in Rarotonga, Mitiaro and Mauke, August – September 198287 specimens · 24 stops · 25 days
Gerrit Parmele Wilder
7 islands · Jun – Aug 1925
Gerrit Parmele Wilder across 7 islands, June – August 192552 specimens · 22 stops · 65 days · 10,586 km
W.A. Whistler
4 islands of the Cook Islands · Jul – Aug 1986
W.A. Whistler across 4 islands of the Cook Islands, July – August 198656 specimens · 20 stops · 58 days · 5,124 km
Jim Space
6 islands of the Cook Islands · 12–29 Mar 2002
Jim Space across 6 islands of the Cook Islands, 12–29 March 200267 specimens · 8 stops · 18 days · 2,644 km
How a journey is found
Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.
A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.
Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.