Great Palm Island
Sixty-five kilometres north of Townsville and less than twenty from the mainland, Palm Island (a.k.a. Great Palm Island, or Bwgcolman) is the largest island in the Palm Island Group and Australia's largest indigenous community with a population of around four thousand, which can increase substantially for festivals and significant cultural events.
The population are descendants of at least five thousand people from at least forty-three tribes and fifty-seven language groups forcibly relocated to the island before 1971. Today's Bwgcolman people are largely descendants of groups from coastal areas between Bowen and Tully, north-western Queensland, and Cape York Peninsula. The diversity stems from the Queensland government's use of the island as a penal settlement for "trouble-makers" from elsewhere in the state.
"Palm" is a twenty-minute flight from Townsville or one-and-a-half hours on ferries that depart from the city's Breakwater terminal.
