Yorke Island (Masig Island) is a coral cay situated in the Eastern area of the central island group in the Torres Strait, at the top end of the Great Barrier Reef and Northwest of the tip of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. It lies Northwest of Coconut/Poruma Islandin the central island group and Southwest of Stephens Island/Ugar Island, West of Darnley Island/Erub Island, and Northwest of Murray/Mer Island in the eastern island group.
This island is one of the Torres Strait Islands that are part of the state of Queensland, Australia.
Yorke Island, traditionally known as Masig, is about 2.7 km long and 800 m at its widest point. The inhabitants, skilled navigators with a detailed knowledge of the reefs, have always occupied a central position in the Straits trading networks.
In 1845, Masig people could be found trading from the west of the Straits to the east. Before the arrival of teachers from the London Missionary Society in the 1870s, Masig was attracting a diverse community of immigrants, some brought by the pearl and trochus shell industry.
The Queensland Government moved the people of Aureed to Masig after it was declared a government reserve. Luggers owned by Masig families continued to operate until the shell industry collapsed in the 1960s. The people then shifted successfully into commercial mackerel fishing, prawning and crayfishing. A highly profitable fish factory has operated on the island since the late 1970s, freezing the catch and airfreighting it to southern markets .
A regular scheduled air service is operated by West Wing Aviation from Horn Island, otherwise access to Masig is by charter plane or boat. All goods and mail are delivered by a weekly barge service and via the scheduled air service. Masig has a medical centre, staffed by a qualified nurse and there is also a doctor based there, who provides medical services to three other islands in the central island cluster (Coconut, Yam and Warraber). The island has a school, which is a campus of Tagai State College (based on Thursday Island). There is an IBIS store on the island and also a Mini-Mart.
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)