|
Great Barrier Island (Aotea) has a diverse history dating
back some 700 years to the first colonisation by people from East Polynesia.
In the
1800's European arrived and their activities on the island included; the mining
of copper at Miners Head, silver and gold mining at Okupu and Whangaparapara.
Kauri was logged for many years and a restored kauri dam is still standing on
the Kaiaraara track to Mt Hirakimata (Mt Hobson). Farming was innovative and
included cattle, sheep, goats, deer, bees and of course marine
farming. Commercial whaling occurred in the nineteenth century and again during
the 1950's. Many ships were built on the island including the barque
Stirlingshire. Great Barrier Island has also been the location of more than 30
shipwrecks, the best known being the SS Wairarapa.
(A survey of
Kaikoura
Island includes information on Maori and European settlement of Great
Barrier Island (Aotea).
|
|
►Adams
Family at Buschs' Beach, Kaiaraara Bay
►Rev
Baker's
Pastoral Visit to the Great
Barrier Island from the
Journal of the Rev. A. Baker, M.A. (Church Gazette.) March 1881
►Cooper Family
►Jim
Eagles - Stepping
Back in Time on Great Barrier Island
September 2004
►Freddie
Ladd - Flying to Great Barrier
1971
►Le
Roy Family
►A
E LeRoy - The Great Barrier Island Published in the ‘Journal of the Auckland-Waikato’
Issue No. 32 April
1978
►Girlie Leroy
►Alethea Major (nee Lamond)
►E
M
Malcolm's Lonely Life on Great Barrier Island
Part of a printed booklet of 1904 “My Own Story” in which Emile Monson Malcolm describes the sixteen years the family spent on the island from
1854.
►Fred
Medland's Fishing
Tales Fishing on Great Barrier Island from the 1930's.
►Paddison Family
►Sanderson Family
►Dion (Stud)
Stellin and Barrier Gold
►Don Woodcock
- A Reflection: My time on Great
Barrier Island
►Karaka Bay
Graveyard
Compiled by Margaret Peacocke, a great-great-grand-daughter of Edward &
Annie Paddison
Find out about the newly formed
'Great Barrier Island History Research Group
Inc'
|
►Kaiaraara
Kauri Dam - Three dams were erected
from the kauri logs, built across the headwaters of the Kaiaraara Stream,
directly below Mt Hirakimata.
►NZ's
First Airmail Service - the Great Barrier
Island Pigeongram
►SS Wairarapa Shipwreck
►Orama Christian Community at Karaka Bay
►Flight of
the Albatross Movie 1996
World Premiere on Great Barrier Island
►Castaway
reality television show filmed on Great Barrier Island on February
28th 2007
►North
Barrier Library at Port FitzRoy
►Painting of Kaiaraara & Mt Hirakimata
(Hobson) by George Frederic Allen
Historical images not
related to articles.
Don Armitage's Great Barrier Island History Articles
Join the Great Barrier Island History Group on Facebook
|