DESERTED ISLAND

foreign [Music] Journey your television passport to the exciting Colorful World of Adventure and here to present the actual films of tonight's Bowl journey is John Stevenson good evening ladies and gentlemen tonight's Journey takes us by Light plane to a deserted island the only sign of one-time human habitation is a lonely ghost wrench which is slowly crumbling into dust this island is so secluded that a plane wrecked there laid undiscovered for many months strangely this deserted spot is not thousands of miles away but lies just off our Pacific Coast only 20 miles from civilization it's the island of San Miguel centuries ago San Miguel with its bright herds of elephant seals was the home of Indians who have long since disappeared the people who tried to settle their sins have also vanished wild but friendly foxes remain but how did they cross the channel to get there here's the man who probed these Mysteries Mr Ed Durden of Carpenteria California we'll meet this aerial Explorer in just a moment friends here's the adventurous pilot himself Mr Ed Durden how are you Mr dirt and pleasure to be here John Mr derdness strikes me that a deserted island is a wonderful place for an adventure what first attracted you to the island of San Miguel well John the my first attraction was looking for an auxiliary Landing field that's why a great deal over the water spotting uh schools of fish for the commercial boats and naturally uh when you're over the water as most Pilots will testify their engine picks up noise and you can hear the connecting rods and all kinds of little noises so when you pass over a small island you ask yourself the mortar failed now could I set her down safely so that was really my first purpose in landing upon San Miguel and when you did line there it opened up a whole new world for you right John I saw the many interesting things there and decided to tell a story on film well I'm particularly fascinated with the stories of the foxes now do you have any theories on how they got there many people have asked that very same question my theory John is that they were they're originally when the when the island was connected to the mainland the second theory is that the Indians carried them over which I do not go for that theory myself no whatever it is it's still conjecture right running a private plane today is really catching on but the big problem is maintenance and storage now uh where do you keep your playing well I am very fortunate John believe it or not we keep the plane right in our backyard there at Carpenteria and here my son Ken and I who have planned this Expedition for some time or shown changing the small tires for extra large ones why is that well John there are no Landing strips upon San Miguel Island and the large tires will assist and Buckley Landings rough field can also assist in soft sand takeoffs the airplane is especially constructed John it has large flaps well fitted for this type of operation of Landing in strange places short field takeoffs with all of our equipment on board life rafts plenty of water and of course a big lunch we slip into our May West life jackets there are other Old World War number two but they do give you a feeling of confidence that's my son Kent there he is 18 and still attending college well I'm anxious to see Mr dirt and how you get this plane out of your backyard well John isn't exactly the backyard the house that's just beyond the hangers there we have a very nice strip the underbelly shots John were taken with a camera mounted externally and Kent was not strapped underneath the belly of the plane it's a beautiful day and the trip is 60 miles over Open Water just gives you a good idea of what it looks like we're on our course now of about 210 degrees which should take us to San Miguel a flock of ducks passed by and occasionally a very friendly looking steamer we wish we could stay right above the steamer all the way there John but of course the steamer is only doing about 10 miles an hour and we're doing about a hundred now 35 minutes later we approached San Miguel you notice that surrounded by dangerous Shoals and reefs and being located only 10 miles from the steamer Lane it's a definite Hazard to shipping many boats and vessels have gone down in these Waters in fact it is said that modern Schooners and Spanish galleons rest side by side and the waters off San Miguel it's very rough some of the roughest water along the coast is found near San Miguel watch closely here and you will see the remains of a very ancient vessel that was lost many years ago probably was running off course in the fog and struck this Reef we are bringing our little plane in for landing on the northwest side of the island was very bumpy but she was built for it the big tires were a great help there how do you Scout your Landings before attempting one Mr Durden well John we fly very low look things over and then just stick our tongue in our cheek and come on in for the landing there's a certain amount of risk and luck we were greeted immediately by a beautiful pair of bald-headed Eagles our national bird emblem and this is Kyler Harbor it was in this Harbor that the San Salvador and the La Victoria anchored in 1542 was Rodriguez Cabrillo on board Rodriguez Cabrillo was the man that discovered California and it was while exploring this island of San Miguel that he received an injury which later cost him his life and his crew members buried him in an unknown grave upon San Miguel grave has never been discovered so this particular Stone does not necessarily mark his grave but his memory that's right it is only a memorial his grave has never been discovered although there has been many efforts made to find it also John we discovered the small Fox which lives upon the island there were about two dozen of these little animals roaming around that we were able to see probably there were more and here with a little piece of hamburger which Ken had brought along for the purpose he promised to lure one of the little foxes within very close range so we can obtain some footage and more or less study and see just exactly what type of an animal it is and his first maneuver here is to imitate The Cry of a wounded bird and that attracts the little fox to start with so of course he circles downwind and picks up the scent and gradually begins working his way toward the sound he was very cautious he'd go forward then he'd back up and then he'd come forward again but eventually while he did work his way toward Kent there and course appetite was a large Factor here you could smell the scent and eventually he did accept the tidbit It's a Wonderful study very cute little animal I should say and somehow they have managed to survive all these many thousands of years probably since the island was cut off from the mainland if I were you when all this was going on well I filmed the picture and remained very quiet living almost exclusively now on Grasshoppers and occasionally I suppose a little fox finds a bird's nest like you see here we noticed a few bird nests of the Meadowlark and also the desert horned lark strange things these birds inhabit the desert regions and yet they fly across the channel to live on San Miguel also we found a large number of seagulls here's the young girl very well camouflaged mother seagull is very concerned I was wishing to distress it too much why can't places a little bird back in the nest well we leave the little fox to his hunting there of insects and leave the seagulls and continue on around with our adventure here upon San Miguel well you notice very rugged Coastline there motor failure here would be embarrassing embarrassing is an understatement we have heard in advance that people used to live up on the island and so flying along there we noticed the remains of habitation this is the Old Ranch it's just a Ghost Ranch there's nothing there now and it was formerly used for raising cattle and in later time the raising of sheep will endeavor to land alongside the ranch here and this is probably the closest call we had to losing our landing gear barbed wire fence was approaching pretty rapidly here question or not whether we could stop throw out the anchor wow we're right side up John and that's considered a fair Landing there on San Miguel any Landing you can walk away from oh that's right John the buildings were a very sad condition you notice the water tank one is still standing one is down the elements have taken their very heavy toll this Ranch was constructed in the year 1895 almost entirely of material Salvage from a wrecked Lumber Schooner which had crashed upon one of the reefs now it's crumbling and decaying very damp everything covered with moss that's sort of a sad picture of what used to be and another strange feature about the Old Ranch it has round portholes for Windows and sliding doors probably the portholes were an added protection against the very strong Northwest winds the old barn was in fair condition probably the best preserved of all the island is nine miles long three miles wide and there were no vehicles upon the island and the horses probably played an important part in transportation inside the old barn we still find the names of the horses that were used the remains of the sheep endeavor can't notice here that the barn was still inhabited not by man or animals just the pair of ravens I've been to many many strange places John and the Raven always seems to be at home he can make a living in a desert so our very desolate places and Kent said that if he couldn't see things very close while there was no he's watching them now Kent captures a little Raven here and of course the mother's very unhappy giving him a buzz job there so after a few minutes well I can't put the little black robber down on the mainland they're quite a problem and certain times of the year they do Rob other bird nest I don't know Kent's qualifications but he seems to know his way around animals and birds Kent spends all of his spare time in the hills and although he's taken free dental at College he's very interested in this sort of thing here I might add that in taking the pictures of the landing and takeoffs that we had to affect two Landings and two takeoffs the first takeoff I left Kent on the ground he took the pictures and now you got to come back and pick up Kent to take off again on your exploration is that the case a year I had to shoot the barbed wire fence once more another very interesting feature we discovered upon San Miguel Island John was the remains of a prehistoric Forest now this land you see over the nose and that we're flying over right now was once covered with a very dense forest and Lush vegetation now in just a moment why we'll prove what we're saying here John another amazing Landing Mr Durden on a slope you always land on one wheel else you would probably ground Loop up the hill at least that was my experience now John this forest was buried many many years ago San Miguel had a very damp climate at that time and this Forest you see here this is the limbs of the forest sticking above the sand where they were covered many thousands of years ago and today they are being uncovered John by the terrific winds and shifting sand excuse me Mr Dirt you mean these are the uppermost branches of these buried trees that's right John and you notice the casting here that is formed around the limbs of these trees yes very brittle a casting a crust is much the same as you would fix up a broken arm no trace of wood left here what you see inside the casing is just dust or dirt and these trees Mr Dirt 9 petrified wood no John they are not petrified what you see is the Limestone casing around what used to be the wood well before we were looking at the uppermost branches and now we're looking at the trunks how do you explain that in certain areas the wind blows a little harder on the more exposed sections of the island and therefore the tree has been uncovered all the way down I see another indication of The Damp Plymouth that existed there John is the millions of snail shells which once roam the island today there are no snails upon San Miguel this is not a sea snail these are land snails and there were millions of them around We Came Upon a tragedy as we were walking through the prehistoric Forest this is a B-25 Bomber which crashed 11 years before it had taken off on a search mission for another plane and lost in the fog she crashed upon this Lonely Island there were 10 men on board John and no survivors you see here the pilot seat or the co-pilot seat and their wreckage was strewn over a wide area some people say this wrecked lay here for months before being discovered this was an Army Air Force plane and they're the old blade of the prop seems to point toward the sky John from where she came it's quite a coincidence isn't it Mr Durden with all the water surrounding this area it would land on an island she radioed that she thought she saw Santa Barbara Island and it could be that she was letting down very rapidly through the fog and may have struck the San McGill boy taxi over the forest here and continue with our adventure right here we were glad for the large tires enable us to get through the branches here and become airborne again I love these downhill takeoffs into the wind you don't have to run very far and the plane climbs very rapidly also the large flaps were a great help there in that type of operation we heard that there were sea elephants upon the island now I had never seen a sea elephant neither had my son Kent and I think few people have they were almost extinct a few years back this is a California sea lion here John that you see racing along the beach there you are casing a landing spot again that's right and you'll see elephants they look up and we sail right in over their heads there were literally hundreds of them look at them scanner quite a sight John right here is where we were very glad to have the large tires you'll notice in just a moment a very good illustration on how to treat a whirling propeller we can take a lesson from this little lady sea elephant she believes in never turn your back up on a spending prop got it in reverse all the way yes sir taking taxi very well in Reverse well as usual Kent decides on a close examination of everything you like to see what sort of teeth they have these animals are quite large John 18 feet long and weighing 4 000 pounds some of them very lovable playful creatures they just can't seem to do enough for one another oh this is playing they seem to be laughing and this is the bull sea elephant things are more business with him um that was not in fun John the two old here one has trespassed upon the other's property and they're trading blows if you got in a good one there the harems are formed and trespassers always lead to a battle [Music] sometimes a little lady sea elephant will go for a swim and a lone bull who has no Harem of his own just a few scars to testify as many battles well he'll start in pursuit of this little cow elephant and he doesn't realize it but he is being watched by one of the older Bulls he feels that now is a good time to start a harem of his own but in the old bow gradually comes to life and Lumbers down the beach in Pursuit [Music] they square off here they fight with a sort of a chopping motion and it's very destructive sometimes they swim ashore leaving a trail of blood behind and in this case the young bull swims off again and onshore the elephants relax and say well let the boys fight they settle down they stretch and yawn [Music] and then they toss a little sand some say it eliminates the chances of sunburn and a little sand on her nose there a lot of gnats John and I think to sand tossing May eliminate the bite of the net also they certainly know how to relax Kent he's getting right into the spirit of the thing there feels a good scratch coming on they dig a little sand out of their eyes but finally John they do go to sleep and they snore very much like a human being very sound sleepers you can pull those whiskers and they'll just lay there lion you forgot to look behind him just like children do on the beach and he was rolled a little bit there on that last breaker he's all in John almost exhausted in fact this looks like his first swimming lesson well it could be we counted several of the little fellows that weren't quite so fortunate they had drowned in the heavy surf there but they dry off and go at it again a few hours [Music] Kent decides to get acquainted here oh they're awful cute little animals we had a great desire to carry one home with us but we kept in the back of our mind that they would weigh about five or six hundred pounds eventually you get about 40 pounds of fish a day but isn't this the type of sea lion that's trained for acts all over the country you're right John this is the only specie that is intelligent enough to train and seals from this San Miguel Island are shipped to all parts of the world airmail there's a man in Santa Barbara that has been trapping seals for 18 years on the channel island group there well we're leaving the West tip that was a very good Landing Strip there one of the best that we had encountered so far and we didn't look forward to this Sand Dune flying again but we wanted to visit the Indian remains which we learned was upon the island a very large group of Indians lived here known as the cannolino Indians it's the largest Indian Camp ever discovered north of the Mexican border and we're now passing over the remains of their Village it extended for about eight miles in one direction and about a mile in width and over the entire surface of the ground there was debris from their camps that reached an average depth of about six feet thousands of Indians lived here and made their living off of abalones seals and fishing they were a very friendly Indian Cabrillo mentioned them in the logs of his vessels here we see the remains of a cannolino Indian just a little bit of a skull and a leg bone or two there and a few arrowheads John is all that the wind had left the winds had opened this grave sandblasted the contents until nothing but the hard artifacts were left here you notice the camp deposits from the Indians a very concentrated material here of snails and seashells all kinds of Bones this is a digging Stone a lot of work went into the manufacture of this they would probably use this stone for digging Graves or any digging at all was done by Stone in fact all of their implements Were Made of Stone John very little wood material at least it never survived to this time now here's a heavy bone Implement that has survived it's fashioned from the rib avoyo and we figure it was probably used for the removal of Abalone from the rocks or the reefs along the edge of the coast today there are literally millions of Abalone fashioned to the reefs around San Miguel but I think during the time of the Indians they were probably very rare because as I say a vast population existed there and they probably kept the Rocks pretty well cleaned off I mean as you said earlier this was once a very very Lush Island you're right John at that time they also added to their diet acorns trees were abundant of course in later years why possibly they lived on fish exclusively there and the wind is now Rising again John the wind opens the graves and then it covers them up and actually the wind is the ruler of San Miguel that even the sculptures that Driftwood notice the fine etching here on the Driftwood this is Driftwood we were looking at and then the wind moves the sand up the windward side of the slopes John and there it spills down the least side of the slopes and falls upon the beach and someday the San Miguel Island will cease to exist it will be known as dangerous Shoals Upon Our Maps because all the loose material will be blown off into the sea or had spilled down and fallen into the sea and someday we'll have to change things around on the map and it's gradually blowing the island away and now it's literally blowing us off of the island we race back to the plain and we climb aboard there we had seen a great many interesting things on the island and we didn't want to push our luck yes Mr Durden one plane wreck on San Miguel is quite enough you know one thing that impressed me was the fact that the conquistadores of centuries ago must have given or would have given rather quite a bit to have owned a small plane like yours you saw more in a matter of minutes than they saw in days or weeks yes John you do get a bird's eye view of everything from the air and with the right type of equipment you can land for a closer look well you had me on the edge of my seat several times with some of those Landings and takeoffs that plane of yours is quite maneuverable but don't you risk quite a bit in those Landings and takeoffs well John This Plane as I mentioned before is specially designed extra large Wheels large flaps and with it you can will say land on a dime and sometimes have a little change left over ah good give us an idea of how long an area you took to take off a plane and land about 300 feet John was plenty of room which isn't much at all well you mentioned during the film too that your son is a pre-dental student which makes us assume that he's going to be a dentist of course but does he plan to take after his father and be a pilot at any chance well John uh personally I've discouraged him in becoming a pilot I think he's better off in the free dental and uh if he makes the grade I think he would be happier and then he could really afford the right type of equipment and if he doesn't make the grade why then he has no use for an airplane anyhow well getting back to the island one thing that impressed me too was the fact that these foxes have survived all these years without any fresh water supply during what period of the year of course there's plenty of water during the dry we still have the heavy Coastal fogs and certain areas are damp the little seepage and they have learned to subsist on much less water I believe than their Mainland cousins well Mr Durden my thanks to you for sharing your fine adventure with us here tonight I'm sure we've all learned something new about our Pacific Coast so very glad to be here John hope you enjoyed deserted island with Mr Ed Durden and that you'll join us again next week at the same time for another fascinating Journey and now a final reminder that if you have interesting films of an adventure anywhere in the world we'd be pleased to hear about it just drop me a note John Stevenson care of this station giving full details thank you and good night [Music] thank you the early traders journey to remote lands by sailing ship but today's Trader goes by air Here Comes Mr Tech Sigler Arctic Bush pilot and Trader trading with natives all over this hemisphere is his adventurous profession which sometimes requires him to assist his customers Eskimos must have walrus to eat so Mr Ziegler lends a hand it's dangerous work persuades over a ton the Eskimo May wear modern clothes brought by the traitor but he dances the same as his forefathers to the air again this time on a flight to the diomedes that's Siberia he puts us next to Journey with Mr techer when he brings us his own film The Flying traitor one week from tonight