Pitcairn Island resident describes how she lives and works

January 7, 2024

Sea la vie — a 21-year-old woman is sharing what life is like on Pitcairn Island, a remote spot in the South Pacific that only has about 50 residents.

“This place is paradise,” Torika Christian told the Daily Mail this week. “We welcome everyone with open arms and after spending some time away, I know that I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”

Christian often gives her 1,300 TikTok followers a peek at her extraordinary island life.

Measuring just 2 miles long and 1 mile wide, Pitcairn doesn’t have an airstrip, so access is limited to infrequent boat service.

“Here on Pitcairn, we have a supply ship called Silver Supporter that runs between the island and the Gambier Islands every week. This arrives on a Thursday and departs on a Sunday taking tourists and locals,” Christian explained to the Daily Mail, adding that the return cost for tourists is $3,400.

“If you don’t catch that Sunday ship then you have to wait another week,” she continued. “However, sometimes the wait can be up to five weeks as the same ship sails to New Zealand about every three months to bring mail, food supplies, medical supplies, and general cargo.”

Christian says she is an eighth-generation descendant of the English sailor Fletcher Christian, who led a mutiny on the HMS Bounty in the South Seas in 1789 and settled on Pitcairn.

The island is part of the larger Pitcairn Islands, which includes the uninhabited Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno Islands. They form the UK’s sole overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean.

Residents “definitely have to be comfortable with isolation,” Christian shared.

She described a typical day on the island to the Daily Mail: If the weather is good, she goes fishing. If it is raining, she gardens or stays home.

“Work life here is very flexible,” she said. “We work enough to pay our bills but with [$6.25] an hour pay, on a good day we would rather enjoy our home and the nature God blessed us with.”

She helps run her family business, Pitkern Islen Enterprises, which sells model ships, fish wall hangings, and stamps of the island. The family’s one-bedroom chalet rents for $300 a night to visitors.

Christian’s side jobs include working for the government and off-loading cargo ships.

She said the island boasts a small general store, tourism office, library, gym, and a medical center, which features a dental room, small ward, and an X-ray machine.

Residents head to Tahiti for major medical concerns.

Christian said a school on the island remains closed since the only two children who live there are being tutored overseas.

She spent her high school years in New Zealand, returning home to Pitcairn because she felt homesick.

She hopes others join her on the island.

“We need more people for there to be a sustainable future for Pitcairn,” she reasoned. “That’s just the reality of it. But we need willing community-friendly people. Not people who want to come here and just isolate themselves from the community and be alone.”

She noted that “on Pitcairn, you are everything — the plumber, the electrician, the mechanic, the builder. Living on an island so remote you have to learn all these trades to be able to live.”

One profession she wishes Pitcairn possessed?

A salon technician — because “every girl loves a bit of glam!” Christian exclaimed.