The kitchen staff tend the vegetable and herb gardens prior to harvesting to provide only the freshest food combinations to reach your table in the dining environment of your choice - whether on the beach, restaurant or Sunset Bar. The wine cellar enables you to select a vintage to suit your palate under the guidance of experts, if so required.
There is a “no menu” concept of dining in the restaurant i.e. the chef, Geoffrey Murray, speaks to the guest upon arrival, explains the North Island cuisine concept, finds out their food preferences and then develops the menus daily around this information.
The North Island dive school and fishermen are experienced professionals who inspire confidence in both uninitiated and seasoned guests alike.
Each guest receives a complimentary 20 minute massage on arrival to arrival to ease them into their North Island experience. In-Villa spa treatments are carried out by an enthusiastic and talented team, allowing guests to relax in their own private space. The treatments are specially derived from island ingredients and, in keeping with the North Island concept of tailor-made service, three different treatment concepts can be chosen from. This ensures that guests receive exactly what they need when they need it.
Whether on our specially designed Island buggies, kayaks or mountain bikes, touring around North Island is a dream. Visiting the North Island Seychelles historical museum or our oldest inhabitants - the tortoises - North Island welcomes you to her shores and to a place where the only forms of encroachment by human beings are treasured memories and newly formed friendships …
'ILLE DU NORDE' - About North Island Seychelles
Standing on Beau Vallon Beach on Mahé, if you look due North East you can see a tiny hump on the horizon, just to the right of the mountainous Silhouette Island. In the early years of habituation and exploration on Mahé, people would have done exactly that – stood on Beau Vallon Beach and looked out to sea at Ile du Nord and its’ sentinel, Silhouette Island.
In 1784 a Portuguese ship was wrecked on North Island. After spending some time marooned on the island, a small handful of the ship’s crew built a makeshift raft and risked their lives sailing to Mahé to find rescue. We know for certain that there were no inhabitants living on North Island at the time of the wreck, but through that event, settlers from Mahé would have received a good description of North Island. Its plateau, fresh water supply and ample presence of fish and fowl would have drawn the first inhabitants. Officially, the Island’s first concession was given in 1826 to a woman, Madam Marie Josephine Celerine Beaufond, a descendant of French settlers from Bourbon (now Reunion). The Island remained in her family’s name for the next one hundred and fifty years, as a plantation for growing fruits and spices, mining Guano, fish oil and finally producing copra – the oil pressed from the flesh of a coconut.
In the early days North Island would probably have been planted full with vanilla, patchouli, cinnamon, ylang-ylang, citronella, nutmeg, cloves and all sorts of fruit. From the aromatic plants grown on the Island, they would have been distilling the essential oils and it is believed that the museum building was once the distillery, built before the turn of the century at the time when that industry was flourishing in the Seychelles. With its wide coral stone walls and narrow arches, it would have been a cool, cavernous space, perfect for the purpose of distilling.
With the abolition of slavery, the industry moved towards the production of copra. Even though North Island was planted predominantly with coconut, it remained more fertile than most islands, and proved to be an excellent farm for fresh produce - Mahé’s chief supplier. The elaborate size and quality of the produce grown on North Island is still remembered amongst many older Seychellois people on Mahé – who extrapolate with widened, humorous eyes and animated hand gestures.
Behind every great success story lies hidden tales of great challenges met and formidable obstacles successfully surmounted. The development of North Island has been no exception to the rule.
When North Island was abandoned in the 1970’s following the collapse of the coconut industry, many unwanted and intrusive species of flora and fauna remained behind such as coconuts, casuarina, cows, rats, pigs, Indian Mynah birds, cats, barn owls and an especially invasive weed called lantana. Together, these unwanted elements held North Island in a stranglehold that threatened to stifle its very life force, smothering the indigenous plants, decimating the bird life and drying up the marshland that is the lifeblood of the Island.
After the alarm bell had been sounded by prominent ecologists, North Island undertook the challenge of not only reversing the Island’s sorry decline but of taking the long road towards the restoration of the Island to its former glory. A cornerstone of this bold initiative has been the “Noah’s Ark” concept by which tortoises and certain species of birds are gradually being re-introduced to the Island along with such indigenous trees as takamaka, badamier and the legendary coco-de-mer palm.
The concept of an eco-sensitive lodge on North Island has been preceded by years of painstaking research and co-ordination with government conservation bodies committed to ensuring the protection of the natural environment and biodiversity. Such considerations have not only placed numerous checks and controls on the nature of the project itself but have also ensured that maximum efforts are made in the direction of the recycling of materials and the rehabilitation of existing structures. They have steered North Island’s architects down the road of limited development, limited noise, the preservation of historical sites, the eradication of alien fauna and flora, and the replanting of lost species of fauna as well as the conservation of water and the installation of ecologically sensitive sewerage.
The conscientious pursuit of such policies is now reaping its just rewards and has contributed much to the extraordinary way in which the lodge’s 11 secluded Villas blend seamlessly with their surrounds and also to the eco-sensitive aura that now pervades the Island.
Felled alien trees such as the casuarina as well as dead takamaka trees have been used in the building, their serpentine roots now snaking their way through roofs, their bleached limbs adorning balustrades and stairways. In one inspiring marriage of past and present, two of the original copra shacks have been turned into a library and dive centre while the quest for excellence has brought together artisans from as far afield as Malawi, South Africa – and, of course, Seychelles.
The on-going process of conservation is at the very heart of North Island’s philosophy and, as part of the Island’s continuing endeavours to safeguard its environment, a programme of rat eradication has been successfully completed. This has paved the way for the return of at least three indigenous species of bird, all of them on the danger list: the Black Paradise Flycatcher, the Seychelles Warbler and, most important of all, the Seychelles Magpie Robin – one of the world’s rarest birds.
North Island will continue to honour the policies that are enabling it to realise its goal of offering the highest standards of hospitality against a backdrop of sustainable, eco-friendly practice.
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