We have 2 islands, also Pear Island in Northern Hemisphere, we have 4 players on each and on Nookadoon we created a throwaway player (Jack) to be the island Rep. We moved the 4 players to the other island until Jack started Nookadoon, then moved the players with their houses etc to Nookadoon. We did it twice, tried keeping the villagers in tents, used teraforming to create fake bridges - both times after a few days the villagers got houses. Once the villagers got houses we developed the island and filled the museum etc. Yes it involved time travel and setting the clock to 4:58 AM and restarting the day to build bridges etc faster. We Also used amiibo cards to get winter themed villagers.