Where Gauguin and Brel chose to die — the most remote inhabited island in French Polynesia
Hiva Oa in the Marquesas is the island at the end of the world where two European artists came to escape Europe and found instead that they'd found themselves. Paul Gauguin spent his last two years here (1901–03); Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel flew medical supplies between islands until his death in 1978. Both are buried side-by-side in the Calvary Cemetery. The Marquesas are 1,500km from Tahiti with no lagoons — just black volcanic peaks rising directly from the Pacific.
The Marquesas were settled by Polynesian navigators around 300 CE and became one of the most densely populated island groups in the Pacific before European contact — disease killed an estimated 90–95% of the population within a century. Herman Melville deserted ship in the Marquesas in 1842 and based Typee on his time among the Taipi tribe. Gauguin died in debt here in 1903; Brel arrived 72 years later and lived as an ordinary resident until cancer killed him in 1978.