43 Fun Facts About Virgin Islands National Park

Which Indo-Pacific species has become invasive in the waters of Virgin Islands National Park?

Lionfish have few natural predators here, and they harm native fish by eating them and competing for food.

Which port town is the gateway to the park and home to its visitor centre?

Cruz Bay, on St. John's west end, has the park visitor centre a short walk from the ferry dock; passenger ferries arrive hourly from Red Hook on St. Thomas.

Which member of a famous American family donated the land that created the park in 1956?

Laurance Rockefeller, through his Jackson Hole Preserve, gave about 5,000 acres to create the park in 1956, on condition the land never be developed; he kept the land under his own resort.

Which north-shore resort sat on land held back from Virgin Islands National Park's original 1956 land gift?

Caneel Bay opened in 1956, and it closed after two Category 5 hurricanes wrecked it in 2017.

Which park beach, often voted among the world's best, has an underwater snorkelling trail?

Trunk Bay had reopened by December 2017, just months after two Category 5 hurricanes battered the island.

Where did eleven enslaved people from St. John row a stolen boat to freedom in 1840?

Tortola: Britain had already freed the enslaved in its islands, so people escaping St. John crossed there to be free.

Which beach hosts the only campground in Virgin Islands National Park?

Archaeological digs at Cinnamon Bay have found traces of a settlement from long before Columbus arrived.

Which beach in Virgin Islands National Park, with shallow seagrass beds, is best known for sea turtles?

Maho Bay's shoreline was saved when the Trust for Public Land sold the estate to the park in stages, the park's largest addition since 1956.

Which Virgin Islands National Park trail runs from the visitor centre to Honeymoon Beach?

The Lind Point Trail's upper branch passes a battery that British troops built while occupying the Danish islands in the Napoleonic wars.

What is the highest point on St. John, reached by a steep trail from Little Lameshur Bay?

Bordeaux Mountain, at 1,277 feet, is St. John's highest point; the Bordeaux Mountain Trail climbs steeply from Little Lameshur Bay, and the densely forested summit offers no view.

Which strenuous Virgin Islands National Park hike passes sugar-mill ruins and ancient petroglyphs on its way to the sea?

The Reef Bay Trail ends at a sugar factory that switched to steam power and kept producing into the 1900s, long after emancipation.

The ancient rock carvings beside a waterfall pool in Virgin Islands National Park are usually credited to which people?

Taino, in the most popular theory; by the time Columbus sailed past in 1493, the island's Taino may already have gone.

Which Virgin Islands National Park historic district protects a partially restored sugar factory and windmill east of Mary's Point?

Annaberg grew into St. John's largest sugar estate once neighbouring plantations were merged into it.

Clouds of dust from which desert often drift across Virgin Islands National Park?

The Sahara's dust crosses the Atlantic carrying nutrients into Caribbean waters.

Which territory did the US recognise as Danish in the 1916 Virgin Islands treaty?

Greenland: three decades later, just after World War II, the US offered to buy it, and Denmark refused.

In what form did the US pay Denmark for the Virgin Islands in 1917?

Gold was the price for islands that had become a financial burden to Denmark, which handed them over on 31 March 1917.

Which enslaved woman was one of the leaders of the 1733 uprising on St. John?

Breffu began her part in the revolt by killing the planter Pieter Krøyer and his wife.

The 1733 rebels on St. John came mainly from which African kingdom in present-day Ghana?

Many Akwamu rebels had been royals or nobles at home, and they took control of most of the island before French troops crushed the revolt.

Troops from which French colony were brought in to end the 1733 rebellion?

French troops from Martinique landed in 1734 and ended the revolt after Danish efforts had failed; it had begun in November 1733 when rebels smuggled cane bills into the Coral Bay fort inside bundles of wood.

Which governor-general freed the Danish West Indies' enslaved people in 1848?

Peter von Scholten abandoned Denmark's 12-year plan for gradual emancipation and freed everyone at once.

Which two Category 5 hurricanes hit the park in September 2017?

Irma and Maria struck within two weeks of each other, yet the park had reopened all its roads, trails and beaches by December 2017.

Which president created the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument off St. John in January 2001?

Bill Clinton's proclamation brought bans on anchoring and on almost all fishing in the monument's waters.

After 2005 bleaching, USGS scientists found Hurricane Hole corals growing in what unexpected place?

On submerged mangrove roots, USGS scientists counted at least 30 coral species, making Hurricane Hole a focus of research into how corals may cope with warmer seas.

After the 2005 bleaching, what killed much of the coral in Virgin Islands National Park?

Disease took hold because bleached corals have lost the algae that feed them, leaving them starved and vulnerable to infection.

What is the only native land mammal in Virgin Islands National Park?

Bats pollinate many of the island's flowers and spread the seeds of its fruit trees.

Which small isle in Charlotte Amalie harbour is almost entirely within Virgin Islands National Park?

Hassel Island was once a peninsula of St. Thomas, until a channel was cut through its narrow isthmus.

Which marine scientist led the first all-female aquanaut team off St. John in 1970?

Sylvia Earle's team did the same work as the all-male crews before them, at a time when few women worked in such fields.

Which path from Salt Pond Bay runs down a dry, rocky peninsula to the southernmost point of St. John?

The Ram Head Trail runs about a mile from Salt Pond Bay over a cactus-studded, rocky peninsula to Ram Head, St. John's southernmost point, where cliffs drop some 200 feet to the sea.

Columbus's 1493 name for the Virgin Islands honoured the 11,000 legendary companions of which saint?

Columbus called the islands Las Once Mil Vírgenes after St. Ursula and her legendary 11,000 virgin companions, said to have been martyred at Cologne; he never came ashore on St. John.

What is St. John's nickname?

St. John is 'Love City', a nickname matched by St. Thomas's 'Rock City' and St. Croix's 'Twin City'; at about 19 square miles it is the smallest of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands.

Which Manhattan Project physicist owned a home on St. John's Gibney Beach from 1957?

J. Robert Oppenheimer began spending months of each year on St. John in 1954 and bought land at Gibney Beach, on Hawksnest Bay, in 1957; his daughter Toni later left the beach house to the people of St. John.

Which easily reached sugar-mill ruins in Virgin Islands National Park include a windmill tower and a horse mill?

Catherineberg's horse mill was later converted into a water storage tank.

Which poisonous beach tree, flagged by park signs, can blister skin when rain drips off it?

Manchineel, called the 'death apple', grows along Caribbean beaches; its milky sap burns skin, rain dripping from its leaves can blister, and its small green fruits are toxic, so the park marks the trees with warning signs.

Which small yellow-breasted bird, the U.S. Virgin Islands' official bird, is abundant in the park?

The bananaquit, a nectar feeder nicknamed the 'sugar bird', is the official bird of the U.S. Virgin Islands and is abundant in the park's dry forest, often raiding sugar bowls at picnic tables.

How did the 1733 St. John rebels smuggle weapons into the Coral Bay fort?

Hidden in bundles of wood delivered to the fort, cane knives let the rebels kill most of the soldiers and fire the cannon as a signal.

Which branching coral, listed as threatened in 2006, built the small reefs at Hawksnest Bay in Virgin Islands National Park?

Elkhorn coral often spreads when waves snap off its branches, because the broken fragments can reattach and grow into new colonies.

Which Virgin Islands National Park trail follows the north shore to the snorkelling spot at Waterlemon Cay?

The Leinster Bay Trail follows a shore from which enslaved people once escaped by boat to freedom in the British islands.

Which large lizard, up to five feet long, basks around Cruz Bay and the north-shore beaches?

Green iguanas grow to four or five feet and bask on rocks and sea-grape branches around Cruz Bay and the north-shore beaches; they swim well and drop into the water when startled.

Besides sugar cane, which crop filled St. John's early Danish plantations, now park ruins?

Cotton and sugar estates spread so fast that within about two decades of settlement they covered almost all of St. John.

Which underwater habitat housed four aquanauts for nearly two months in Lameshur Bay in 1969?

Tektite was funded partly by NASA, which wanted to study how people cope with long isolation, as astronauts would on extended space missions.

Which north-shore bay, next to Maho Bay, has a salt pond popular with birdwatchers?

Francis Bay's salt pond, just behind the beach, draws herons, stilts, ducks and other water birds, making the Francis Bay Trail the park's best-known birdwatching walk; the bay is also one of the north shore's calmest anchorages.

What was the Danish name for St. John, home of Virgin Islands National Park?

Sankt Jan stayed on Danish records until Denmark sold the islands to the United States in 1917 and they were renamed.

Which prevailing airflow dominates Virgin Islands National Park's weather?

The trade winds bring more rain when they weaken, so the park's lighter-wind summers are wetter than its breezier winters.