The settling of Eketāhuna

Wellington photographer James Bragge took this photograph on one of his trips into the Wairarapa between 1876 and 1877. It shows Eketahuna, a township developed and built by Scandinavians. For a time, part of it was called Mellemskov, meaning 'heart of the forest'. Bragge published this photograph and many others as a sequence in an album entitled Wellington to the Wairarapa.

The founding settlers of Eketahuna immigrated to New Zealand to clear the Seventy-Mile Bush, a daunting tract of dense forest, about forty miles wide and seventy miles long. It stretched from the northern Wairarapa to southern Hawke's Bay and cut many townships off from each other. The only access through the bush was by river or along tracks used for centuries by Māori.

The settler government of the time wanted to get rid of this bush - to clear areas for farming and settlement, and to push a railway through. It was part of a wider plan, spearheaded by the colonial treasurer and later premier, Sir Julius Vogel. He was keen to stimulate the economy by borrowing money to build roads and railways to open up communication between the provinces. In turn, this would encourage settlement. The sale of land to new settlers would help pay for the roads and railways.

Finding labourers to clear the bush wasn't easy. Settlers were neither willing nor able to take on this gruelling work. Vogel and his government decided that new immigrants were needed. They advertised for settlers in Scandinavia. Parts of these countries were densely forested, and labourers from there would have the skills to clear the bush. The immigrants were to be 'sober, industrious, of good moral character, of sound mind and in good health and coming to the colony with the intention of working for wages'.

There was a shortage of land in Scandinavia, so the New Zealand Government enticed the new settlers by offering forty-acre (16 hectare) blocks of bushland in return for their work. As further encouragement, the government gave the new settlements names like Norsewood and Dannevirke, which recognised Scandinavian cultures.

As it turned out, the Scandinavian settlers were appalled by what they found here. The dense, mosquito-infested Seventy-Mile Bush, with its huge trees looked almost impossible to clear. The families had very little money when they arrived, so they made huts from split totara logs or ponga trunks. These had earth floors, canvas roofs, and oiled calico instead of glass for windows. The families worked hard. Sunday was often the men's only day off. Some lived on blocks that were miles from their contracts, and had to spend Saturday afternoon walking twenty miles or more to be with their families on Sunday.

The clearance of the Seventy-Mile Bush was part of a wider bush clearance in the lower North Island - the largest in New Zealand's colonial history, in fact. Before it began, the usual mode of travel between Napier and Wellington had been around the coast by boat. By 1878, the first railway section into the Seventy-Mile Bush from Napier was complete. Nine years later, the line reached Woodville, and finally, in 1891, Palmerston North. From Palmerston, the trip to Wellington was relatively easy.
 
The massive amount of timber cut down was used both for building and firewood. Unlike settlers in many parts of the South Island, where good quality stone was available, the North Island settlers used wood as their main building material. James Bragge's photograph of the bottom of Ngauranga Gorge, Wellington, clearly shows how timber was used in buildings (including roof shingles), fences, and bridges. Many of Wellington's important early buildings were built from wood, including Old St Paul's Church, and Government Buildings.

Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (2001).