I first learned about the Juan Fernández Islands from a documentary so spectacularly awful that it almost looped back around to brilliance. It was called Apocalypse Island, a kind of budget fever dream that promised ancient secrets, apocalyptic codes, and a stone monument that was supposed to point to the end of the world or something equally profound. The “history” in it was a wreck. The claims were laughable, the scholarship was nonexistent, and the tone landed somewhere between late night infomercial and campfire ghost story. As a historian it made my teeth hurt. But here is the problem. It was gorgeous. The cameras lingered on steep green mountains that rose straight out of the ocean, sea mist curling around basalt cliffs, clouds dragged low across knife edged ridges, and tiny boats nosing into emerald coves that looked like they had never heard of the twenty first century. For all the nonsense, the setting got under my skin. I walked away from that ridiculous program not convinced that the islands held prophetic secrets, but absolutely convinced that I wanted to go there one day. I wanted to see the real place, not the fantasy version. The Juan Fernández Islands do not need invented mysteries. Their actual history, and their fragile present, are more than enough.

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